The Art Pub - Show off your work & help each other out!

[XaviConcept]

Hi, welcome to the semi-official post your art thread for ResetEra!

I dont care what your skillset is, if you're anywhere from

to

then this is the place for you! Use this thread to post doodles, challenges, photos, 3D work, illustrations, fanart or anything in between!

(btw that sweet piece is by Orioto, buy his prints here!)

In this thread, it is extremely encouraged to help and motivate other posters when they share their work!

Sister threads:
PhotoEra - One photo per day
Drawing a Day
Inktober 2017

Some good art related Twitter accounts, (besides my own, hehe)
ArtStation
Cutie Saturday
Sketch Dailies
For Exposure
Polycount
CTRL Paint

Moving forward we'll be merging with the excellent Art Self Study Threa, which has a fantastic OP (thank you, Wulfric) that Im pasting here:

(Text and images based on the thread by DeathTM on the old forums) Welcome to the ResetERA Art Study Thread! This thread's main purpose is to help the ERA community improve their art and get a better understanding of fundamental concepts. We hope that this thread will inspire you to take up art as a hobby, or perhaps even a profession! Our goal is to provide you the necessary nudges in the right direction in order to flex your creative muscles and become more familiar with the visual arts.

Objectives of Art Self Study

Introduce you to the supplies you will need

Introduce you to basic art concepts and resources in a structured manner, enabling you to study on your own and at your own pace.

Contain a library of online tutorials, videos, books, and reference materials.

A casual space to help answer questions, or provide constructive critiques when desired.

A Warning Regarding Nudity in Art

Due to the nature of art and art references (particularly anatomy), be aware that some links may not be safe for work. Please browse using proper judgement. Please give the same precaution when posting. When it comes to art, there will be times where we are naturally threading between artistic nudity and malicious content (or even pornography), and that fine dividing line is really blurred. I can't really say do this or do that, since we are our own artists and it's our expression, but please ask yourself if an artwork is appropriate enough to be posted in a public space.

Basic Art Materials

Talent

First things first… being good at art is not a talent!

Being able to draw is relatively the same as learning to write, in a sense that it's something that you must practice and sharpen. Drawing is a skill, and you can only be as good as the amount of time you put at it learning and doing.

"But why do other people grasp it quicker than me?" you ask. It's because some people already develop those foundational knowledge and skills even before they are drawing. What I mean is those people understand many concepts such as how light works, how shapes work and many other things. It just happened that they went to apply things they already know and understood on the canvas. In a sense, they began learning earlier than you may believe.

Traditional Drawing Tools

To get started, all you really need is a pencil and some paper. A variety of pencils (check out HB, 2B, and 2H) and an acid-free sketchpad from your local art supply store will suffice. These does have some limitations, but it will do the trick to get your hands and eyes accustomed to drawing. However, it doesn't mean that you can buy your way to improvement with better supplies. Other tools like charcoal and pastels will allow you to do things that a pencil cannot.

Kneaded erasers (which come in gray or white) will be easier to work with than the classic pink eraser you used in school. When you become used to how graphite pencils work, other options like charcoal, conte crayons, and ink will help you explore drawing with different techniques.

A word about straightedges: They are nice to have, but are unnecessary when you are starting out. Through practice, you can draw straight lines, organic curve lines, and perfect circles and ellipses if you get into the habit of using your elbows and shoulders instead of your wrists. This is one of the most important foundational skills to have and you will use it for drawing, for both traditional and digital.

Wait! I want to learn more about art supplies! How do I use them?

You're in luck. Parka Blogs has been reviewing art supplies and sketchbooks for several years. They even review tablets and scanners! It's definitely worth taking a look here to find something you can add to your Christmas wishlist.

Now, some of you may be curious about working digitally. Will working digital gives you more options than a pencil and some paper, it does make you a stronger artist right off the bat. Digital drawing may be frustrating at times. Not only does it feel completely different than paper, you must also develop hand-eye coordination between your hand and the monitor you are using.

For beginners, a smaller Wacom tablet will do the trick to acclimate you to the digital world. That being said, I highly recommend practicing on paper first if you are not used to drawing to begin with. For those with higher budgets, an Intuos Pro can be purchased for about $350 US.

On the software side of things, Photoshop and Painter are two of the more popular tools. You can paint in Photoshop using custom brushes but it's something that Painter also has. Photoshop is indispensable when using effects, filters, and photo-editing capabilities. There is other software out there like Sketchbook Pro, Manga Studio, and Paint Tool Sai. It's up to you to see what software you are more comfortable with. Remember: the software is simply a tool, not a magic mushroom that makes you a better artist immediately.

Before using your tablet, it is important that you:

Calibrate your tablet: You want your tablet to be calibrated pressure wise and scaled to real proportions as possible. One way to check scale calibration is to put a circle-shaped object in your tablet and trace over it. If it draws a perfect circle, you're good.

Keep your workspace as similar as when you are drawing traditionally: You want to transfer as much muscle memory and skill you earned drawing traditionally to digital drawing to make it easier to transition.

These 2 are very important because you want the skills and muscle memory you gained from drawing traditionally to transfer directly to digital. These will ensure that you will have the smoothest transition you can have.

Recommended Resources to Digital Art Products

Parkablogs Guide for Buying a Drawing Tablets and Pen Display in 2015 - Parkablogs have constructed a comprehensive guide on picking a drawing tablet to use, all with pros and cons of the tablets. It's a great thing to read to be able to make a better judgment on buying a drawing tablet.

Aaron Rutten's Video Playlists for Tablets - Aaron Rutten has a couple of videos focusing on tablets, including buying, exercises, settings and others.​

II. Building your Knowledge

Now, if you have your tools ready, let's get studying and drawing! Now where do we start?


First, before we start drawing, let's lay out a checklist of what to learn. Almost all of these topics are used on every division of art, no matter what medium you are using. As long as you know these fundamental knowledge, it's just a matter of practicing the skill needed for the given medium that you have. All of these topics are so broad that it will feel like you need to take a semester or two to learn them all, and a lifetime to put them on practice. I won't lie, it's probably true.

As ArtGerm told us, we should treat art as a lifestyle. Whether you are doing art as a hobby or for living, we should always be committed to it. But at the same time, once you have it, you have it for life! It's not gonna go away from you.

So if it gets intimidating, don't worry, take it one small step at a time. You cannot eat a whole elephant in one sitting. Nor learn to play an instrument overnight. Be patient young one.

A. The Illusion of Depth

First of all, we need to remember that our goal when drawing or painting is to put a 3D object into a 2D surface. A 2D plane does not have depth as a dimension, so we have to make the ILLUSION OF DEPTH in our drawings.


To understand and apply these, we need to learn some concepts that can be mathematically and physically involved. But even with that, don't be scared. Math, when concepts are understood, is actually everyone's best friend. Forget the suffering you have on your geometry teacher teaching you stuff that seems like it doesn't apply. Well, I said forget the suffering, not the topic itself lol. We will use those concepts and apply them in art! Keep using them as guides until the concept is well ingrained to a point that you can eyeball them!

P.S. if you are a bit well versed in Math, you can use these concepts with the numbers involved and make easy shortcuts and workflow in digital art! Seriously!

1. Perspective

Perspective Drawing is created to make the illusion of depth using shape manipulation. It uses this basic concept that EVERYTHING THAT IS CLOSER LOOKS BIGGER and EVERYTHING THAT IS FARTHER LOOKS SMALLER. Pretty basic concept, but the applications of it booms out into a bigger subject. Understanding them gives you massive perks later on when you draw the figure especially when you deal with foreshortening.


Expected Topics include:

Rectilinear: 1,2 and 3 Point Perspective
Creating Complex 3D Shapes on Perspective
Curvilinear Perspective
Landscapes​

Recommended Books:

Sucessful Drawing by Andrew Loomis - Andrew Loomis' Perspective Book. Teaches you basic perspective plus rendering orthographic views to perspective just like architects do. Also tackles ground planes with slopes, where objects do not follow your original leveled horizon line. Simply a classic just like the rest of his works.

How to Draw by Scott Robertson - First of the two Scott Robertson's Technical Drawing Books. He goes more indepth with more perspective techniques like drawing curved shapes in perspective and the practical use of curvilinear perspective. He also have exercises that will ingrain the concepts to you.

Vanishing Points by Jason Cheeseman Meyer - A pretty short but meaty and direct-to-the-point book about perspective. What makes this book special is it's only one of the few books (if there is any at all) that actually teach how to do hand-drawn curvilinear perspective grids. A pretty great beginning perspective book for artists.​

2. Color Theory

Along with perspective, we also manipulate color to make illusion of depth. But before we utilize color, we need to understand color itself. First, there are 3 primary dimensions of color. Hue, Value/Lightness/Luminousity and Chroma. There are also Relative Brightness and Saturation, which is completely different than Lightness and Chroma color space wise but it is up to you to study the difference lol.


What's important about seeing color as a colorspace/function of 3 variables is that you can use them to give illusion of depth via form principle and athmospheric perspective. Form principle is the concept of a OBJECT GETTING BRIGHTER WHEN LIT AND DARKER WHEN ON SHADOW, and Athmospheric Perspective is the idea of a OBJECT'S COLOR LOSING SATURATION AND SHIFTING HUES WITH DISTANCE AND LIGHT INVOLVED.

When starting, there will be much emphasis on Form Principle and Color is set aside for now, as you will learn later, proper values will have a more impactful effect on your drawings compared to color.

Expected Topics Include:

Color Spaces
Form Principle
Additive and Subtractive Coloring
Color "Key"
Athmospheric Perspective
Subsurface Scattering
Contrast
many more!​

Recommended Books:

Color and Light by James Gurney - James Gurney's second book, which talks about many topics in Color and Light. He teaches the material conceptually so you will not be lost in the numbers, and he tackles a broad scope of material, from lighting, color theory, color theory, and most important of all, gamut masking.

How to Render by Scott Robertson - Second of Scott Robertson's Technical Drawing books. This is more of the technical approach, as he uses more perspective to determine lighting of the object. It also has more in depth discussions of material reflectivity. This builds up to what has been learned on How to Draw.​

Web Resouces for Illusion of Depth, Color Theory and Perspective:

Proko: Basic Elements + Illusion of Depth Series + Shading – Proko's Basic Elements and Illusion of Depth Series briefly tackles the various ways to show depth on your drawings. The descriptions are brief and enough to show you the gist of things.

Sycra Beginning Foundations of Light and Shadow Series – Sycra's Color Theory Lessons are geared for total beginning artists who do not know where to start. It's a great starting knowledge before you dwell into deeper color theory knowledge.

Alejandro Garcia: Physics for Artists Light and Color Series – Alejandro Garcia teaches Color Theory on a Physics perspective, which is in my opinion, a great resource. This will give you more understanding of how light works and how we see things.

Hue Value Chroma - David Briggs' Online Color Theory Site. A totally mathematical approach to Color Theory. Emphasizes the understanding of color spaces and its dimensions. It might be overwhelming to some, but the lessons learned on this material are really helpful, especially for digital art. Photoshop Blend Modes start to make more sense numerically that it will give you understanding on how to apply it when shading/coloring.​

B. Art Foundations applied on the Human Figure

I can safely assume that most of us who want to learn how to draw started because we want to draw a particular character/s. So we will help you do that! Drawing the Human Figure can look intimidating, but with the right knowledge and obtained skill as a foundation, it can be done by anyone, including you!


1. Portrait Drawing (Drawing the Head)

People say that the how you draw the face oftentimes can make or break your illustration, and that is mostly true. We recognize a person over another through his face, and see what they feels with their expression. Because of this, drawing the Human Head beautifully is of utmost importance when drawing.


When learning to draw the human head, it is important to have the skill of simplifying it first into basic shapes, a spherical mass for the cranium and a box shape for the jaw. Simplifying the head will allow you to look at the drawing on a larger scale, measure the proportions right, use perspective properly, and shade/render them accordingly.

Expected Topics Include:

Mass Conception of the Head
Head Proportions
Facial Features
Hair
Facial Anatomy + Expressions​

Recommended Books:

Drawing the Head and the Hands by Andrew Loomis - This teaches you the famous Andrew Loomis Approach to Drawing the Head, from mass conception of the whole head, to facial features. Proportions for different ages and sex differences are also discussed. There is a light drawing hands part but it's not as in depth. This is more of a Drawing Heads book, and another classic.

Artist's Guide to Facial Expressions by Gary Faigin - When you learn how to draw the head, this is pretty much the next step for that. It gives you a refresher on mass conception of the skull and head, and after that, teaches you the anatomy of the face and the expressions involved. It also has a facial emotions and visemes at the end of the book which is a great reference later on.​

Recommended Web Resource:

Proko's Portrait Drawing Fundamentals Series- Stan Prokopenko teaches Andrew Loomis method on his Youtube video account, and the way he teach is fun, so you won't get bored learning it!​

2. Figure Drawing (Drawing the Body)

Drawing the Human Figure can be intimidating at first because of its complexity, but once you have the skill of simplifying each part first into basic shapes, the challenge becomes much easier, approachable and achievable.


You might be sick of hearing this at this point but it is of utmost importance of having the skill of seeing objects into simplified shapes (mass conception). This will be the constant theme in learning how to draw, as it allows you to tackle a seemingly complex object into something more manageable. This skill will be used not only for the human figure but to any object imaginable, both organic and mechanical.

Expected Topics Include:

Gesture
Mannequinization
Body Proportions
Measurement
Applying Perspective to Figure
Shading/Coloring the Figure​

Recommended Books:

Figure Drawing for All it's worth by Andrew Loomis - Another one of Andrew Loomis' classical Art Fundamentals book. It teaches you all of the fundamentals of drawing the human figure. It tackles basic proportions, using perspective on the figure, mass conception of the figure, landmarks, tips on foreshortening, and many more!

Vilppu Drawing Manual by Glenn Vilppu - Glenn Vilppu's Drawing Manual is also a great resource for figure drawing alongside Loomis, because of its emphasis on drawing and merging basic forms and GESTURE. Gesture is a pretty important exercise that will help you position your figure. It also gives you exercise for doing smooth lines and acts as a good warm up before a session.

Figure Drawing Design and Invention by Michael Hampton - This figure drawing book is going to be a classic, if it wasn't there yet. Michael Hampton's Figure Drawing book emphasizes greatly on drawing mass conception of the figure, including the muscle groups. It gives you the basic flowchart of drawing the figure that IMO is also applicable to many other things.​

Recommended Web Resource:

Proko's Figure Drawing Fundamentals Series – Stan Prokopenko goes over fundamental figure drawing in a pretty comprehensive, structured yet entertaining way. This is a great starting resource for figure drawing that fundamentally prepares you.

3. Human Anatomy (for Artists)

We cannot draw what we do not know, so it's pretty much important to know the things we are drawing or else we will end up drawing something that isn't up to par with our vision. This is why we need to learn anatomy, as it will give us a reference on our designs. Knowing Anatomy will help us figure out whatever we did right/wrong in our figure, and helps us draw from imagination.


Expected Topics Include:

Human Skeletal System
More Extentive Landmarks of the Body
Origin and Insertion of Superficial and some Deep Muscles
Fat Pads
Other Superficial Features​

Recommended Books:

Drawing the Nude by Stuart Eliot - This book is a really great transition book from figure drawing to anatomy studies. A pretty short book that introduces you to many previously learned figure drawing skills and then transitions you to anatomy. It has a really great anatomy sculpt that is really great as a reference. Not a book for starting figure drawing but great to have if you have the basic skills already and wanna move on to anatomy.

Classic Human Anatomy by Valerie Winslow - Winslow's Anatomy Book is a nice starting anatomy book as it teaches muscles in terms of groups (which is really the ideal way to learn and apply anatomy IMO). Aside from missing some muscles, it's a recommended book when starting out and a good reference to go by.

Atlas of Human Anatomy for the Artist by Stephen Rogers Peck - A artist's anatomy book that stood the test of time. A great reference book that has great illustrations, easy to digest and nicely done complementary text, and great lists of musculature tables.

Human Anatomy for Artists by Eliot Goldfinger – This book is more on the advanced side of things, as it talks indepth about each individual bones and muscles, and how they are drawn. It also deals with fat pads, facial features, and many more nooks and crannies of your body that can be seen superficially. It's an awesome book that can be intimidating for beginners, but pretty awesome when you already have a beginning knowledge of anatomy.

ImagineFX's Anatomy Essentials - ImagineFX's Anatomy Essentials is a great figure drawing and anatomy issue that compliments your other figure drawing and anatomy books. Ron Lemen implements gestures and forms while also using reilly method of using abstract lines to further represent gesture and muscle landmarks. There is a other bonus topics by other artists like creating poses (Warren Louw), animal drawing (Marshall Vandruff) and digital painting tips too. (TAKE NOTE, IF YOU ARE BUYING THIS, BUY IT DIRECTLY ON IMAGINEFX. This is the original 226 page version of the book. For some reason, ImagineFX split this book into 2 magazine issues. The first part is the one commonly sold around the web while the second part is hard to find.)

Anatomy for Sculptors by Uldris Zarins - This book isn't just useful for sculptors but also for illustrators too. It's filled with pictures, not words, so it's easier to digest for the visual learner. It has alot of pose reference (compared to many anatomy books where everything is shown on the standard standing figure). It's a great reference book all around.​

Recommended Web Resource:

Proko's Anatomy for Artists Series (Still Ongoing!) – Stan Prokopenko goes over the anatomy of the human body that's needed for artists. He presents it in a easier to digest way which is needed for a tough subject like anatomy.​

4. Drapery

After all this time, we are only drawing naked people, and at some point, we have to clothe them right? Using the foundations built with figure drawing and anatomy, we can study drapery and how drapes interact with the underlying shapes of the figure.


Expected Topics Include:

Stretch and Compress
Anatomy of Folds
Fold Types
Garments
Movement​

Recommended Books:

Drawing People by Barbara Bradley - On this book, Barbara Bradley teaches some fundamentals first, assuming you haven't learned figure drawing yet. Then she goes to teach fold later on the second half of the book. It's mostly a beginner drawing class that focuses more on drawing clothed figure instead of nudes. Some of the pages alone are great reference material for folds, so it's still an invaluable book.

Drawing Drapery Head to Toe by Cliff Young - Cliff Young's short drapery book teaches you basic fundamental folds and where they happen on specific western formal clothing. A nice book to have, and it's pretty cheap too.

Drawing the Clothed Figure by Michael Massen - This is a more in depth take on drapery with nice illustrations around. It teaches hold certain types of folds happen so you will have better understanding of them instead of relying on fold templates. It also tackles different clothing and effects of movement in drapery.​

Recommended Books for Further Study of the Human Figure: (These books are recommended after you have initial understanding of many of the fundamental concepts given on the courses above for further understanding. Some of the given info by these books can be overwhelming if you immeadiately jump without prior knowledge)

Artistic Anatomy & Female Morphology by Dr. Paul Richer - This is, as far as I know, currently the closest thing we will ever have to a doctor's anatomy books tailored for artists. What sets this apart from other anatomy books is that it also have illustrations for superficial veins and deep muscles that is commonly ignored by some artists and artists books as they rarely show on the surface. Knowing those deep muscles not only show us how the superficial muscles wrap around (many muscles do not wrap around the bones, and deep muscles do affect the surface form on different poses), but also give us proper knowledge of the mechanics of human anatomy.

Anatomy for Artists and Illustrators & Complete Guide to Life Drawing by Gottfried Bammes - This is a direct translation of Bammes' Die Gestalt des Menschen and Wir Zeichnen den Menschen. Bammes' teachings are sought through because of his simplification of bones and muscle masses into geometric shapes, where it's easier to put perspective. It's a great practice to do especially for anatomical studies.

Complete Guide from Drawing to Life by George Bridgman - This is the closest thing to compilation of many George Bridgman books. One of the classic teachers of art, Bridgman shows the illustrations of many parts of the body with added commentary that can tell many things that you might not see immediately.

Mastering Drawing the Human Figure - This is probably the only in-depth book that tackles Reilly Method of drawing the figure. Reilly Method uses rhythm/gesture to another level where it has systematic rhythm lines to relate every single anatomical forms.

Strength Training Anatomy by Frederick Delavier - Not designed to be an artist anatomy book, but is filled with anatomy drawings. Delavier is an artist and it shows on this book, as he had perfect drawings for each given strength exercise.​

Recommended Online Resources for Further Study of the Human Figure

Parkablogs Masterlist of Reviewed Figure Drawing and Anatomy Books - Along with Art Products, Parkablogs also reviewed numerous figure drawing and anatomy books, and many of them are great resources that cannot fit into this OP alone. Check those out!​

C. Other Fundamental Art Concepts​

 

[daedalius]

Awesome OP by Wulfric from
Art Self Study |OT| Drawing and Painting 101

Recommended Books:

Drawn to Life: The Walt Stanchfield Lectures Vol. 1 and 2 - These are the collection of lessons of Walt Stanchfield in drawing, which provides with great insightful advice, techniques and many other things. The material teaches not only gesture but also applications of many fundamental art principles. There's a wealth of information that should not be missed.​

2. Using References

For some reason, new artists demonized using references because it felt like "cheating". It cannot be more further from the truth. Every single time we draw or paint, we use references. For example, we see human heads all the time, now we have at least have a reference in our mind what a human head looks like and we can determine if something in our drawing is off. The problem is many times that mental reference is there but we still cannot pinpoint what's wrong with our drawing. There are even times where we don't even know that there is something wrong with our drawing!

This is why we use physical reference. Physical reference gives us the ultimate reference that we can safely rely on, which is reality. If we properly know our subject, we can draw it properly, and we can easily use our artistic licenses to either stay true to what we see or freely exaggerate what we think is important.

Recommended Books:

Imaginative Realism by James Gurney – This is James Gurney's first book where he talks about giving artworks a sense of believability. He talks about researching thoroughly the object that he tries to portray, asking for opinions from experts of the subjects, and using a bunch of references. He greatly emphasizes the right use of references and expanding your visual library. This is a great insightful book that is a must have.​

3. Composition

This might be a tough thing to say for all of us but let's say it, there are times where we tend to make every single part of our drawings important. We want everything to pop out, and we end up with drawings that either nothing pops out, or too busy with details (or both).

When doing a composition, it's better to go to the "whole is better than sum of the parts" approach. We have to decide which parts of your painting you want to shout, and let others recede. We also have to limit our color palettes this way where some colors will be bright and some will be dull. We will apply this concept of CONTRAST to all of the facets of our drawings, from placement, detail, value, color, texture, edges and more!

Recommended Books:

Creative Illustration by Andrew Loomis – Andrew Loomis' signature book in composition. It teaches you creative use of line, values, color and placement for compositional and story-telling purposes. It also teaches you a bit about doing illustrations for marketing approach (which a great exercise for composition since you are trying to sell a particular stuff and make it look awesome). Just beware that there are some tidbits in color that is a bit outdated (he assumes that the most saturated color part of a object is in the terminator, which isn't the case all the time). Beside that small hiccup, it's a great book that you can learn a lot from.​

Recommended Books for Further Study of Other Art Concepts:

The Natural Way to Draw by Kimon Nicolaides - This book emphasizes that we should use all of our senses when drawing. It sounds ridiculous at first until he explained that the one who personally knew & experienced the subject to be studied, he will draw it better than someone who just see the subject. Nicolaides have alot of exercises that progress the further you go to the book, starting from contour and gesture studies, to drapery, form, value and figure studies.

New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards - Though I do not believe that all "creative" thinking happens on the right side of the brain (recent studies show we use both sides of the brain for every tasks), this book and its methods still hold up great when introducing concepts and exercises. It introduces contours, gesture, edges, negative space, form and many more (which most new artists tend to bypass).
​

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D. Art Fundamentals applied to many other things

When you finish the fundamental subjects above, you can now confidently go to the venture that you want! As you become fundamentally solid skill, mindset and knowledge wise, it will be a smoother transition to whatever art department you want to venture. You might venture with many of them depending on your project or tastes, and it's okay. We should be lifelong learners anyway!

1. Traditional Painting with different mediums

When learning drawing, you are trained to emphasize shapes and values first, and that's for a reason. Once you get that basics down, the usual next step is to go to learn painting and dealing with color, and with that, possibilities explode that it can be overwhelming if you do not have the basics down. With painting, you will extensively use your color theory along with other things previously learned when drawing. You will also get familiarized with different paint mediums (primarily acrylics, oils and watercolor) and learn skills like paint mixing.

Recommended Books:

Alla Prima II by Richard Schmid – This is a great insightful book about painting, which teaches you fundamentals that's applicable to painting while also pointing out many common rookie mistakes. He teaches like he is beside you and saying many invaluable things that he learned from experience, and those things alone make the book a great buy. He is also a fan of making color charts (making a premixed palette chart for all your commonly used paints), which can be tedious but deemed important when mastering color mixing.

Landscape Painting by Mitchell Albala – A nice painting book for starters. The first half teaches hand-held approach to fundamentals. The real new material on this book is the second half of the book that teaches you step by step on making oil painting, wet-on-wet, where it points out things you have to look for. It also teaches a bit of introduction to abstract art applied to landscape painting.

The Realism Challenge by Mark Crilley - This book is pretty much a still life painting course on steroids. Even if you are not going for realism, the exercises provided gives you great observation skills and attention to detail, which every artists should have. This is a great book to strengthen your painting skills.

1500 Color Mixing Recipes by William Powell – This is a great reference book for mixing colors. It has Shades, Tones, Tints, Complementaries, and Palettes for various painting jobs, made for all painting mediums. A must have reference for painters.​

2. Animal Drawing

Of course, not everytime we will draw a human. There will be times where we will draw our animal companions alongside our figure, or even human/animal hybrids. If you are well versed with the skills and knowledge gained with Drawing the Human Figure and Human Anatomy, learning to draw animals gets easier, as you apply the same principle of simplifying the animal figure with basic shapes, and the anatomy of animals can be surprisingly related to the human anatomy!

Recommended Books:

Weatherly Guide on Drawing Animals by Joe Weatherly – Joe Weatherly is a known artist that specializes in animal drawing and painting, and he decided to share his knowledge in this book. His approach is really similar to the typical figure drawing course, you do the gesture, build block forms, shading, you name it. It's just applied to animals.

Artist's Guide to Drawing Animals by J.C. Amberlyn – This is a simply-instructed animal drawing book that's focused on domesticated animals (pets). This book is great as it shows a wide variety of animal breeds and teach you the notable characteristics of those breeds.

Complete Guide to Drawing Animals by Gottfried Bammes – Another great drawing book by Bammes. A direct translation of Tiere Meschnen, Bammes' method of simplifying each anatomical parts into detailed shapes in perspective is something that will greatly help you understand and draw each animals.

Animal Anatomy for the Artist by Eliot Goldfinger – Eliot Goldfinger shows us another great anatomy reference book in this one. He follows the same approach as the human anatomy book that he talks with detail the individual bones and muscles, then he presents the form differences of many animals. This is an indispensable book and one of the few comprehensive animal anatomy books around.​

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3. Fashion & Clothing

It's good to learn to draw clothed the human figure with clothes, but it's another story to design them to be appealing. This will apply many skills you gained in both portrait and figure drawing (while expanding the knowledge of drapery, clothing and hairstyles). All the options you have are infinite! From old times to modern fashion, from western to oriental, you can study them and make inspired characters with dazzling design!

Recommended Books:

Figure Drawing for Fashion Design Revised Edition by Elisabetta Drudi – This is one quality fashion book for artists. This book starts at teaching you figure drawing with fashion figures in mind. Then the meat of this book comes in with stylization, basic fashion poses, focus shots, and different clothing variations. The illustrations and references alone makes this a worthwhile book to buy even if you are not going for fashion design.

Fashion Illustration for Designers 2nd Edition by Kathryn Hagen – This is THE fashion illustration textbook you need to have in the future, even if you are not going for fashion itself. This textbook points out what you have to look for when designing clothes by giving you checklists, and it covers wide variety of clothing and people. It's kind of expensive (which is expected since it's an actual thick college book, darn pearson) but it's worth it with the many pages of info alone.

Fashion: The Definitive History of Costume and Design – A pretty great starting point reference for mostly western fashion. Because if its encyclopedia-like format and big collection of pictures, it can be used as inspiration to your designs, or even give you direction for future research. A nice reference book to have.

​

Recommended Web Resources:

lilsuika's DeviantArt Account – A ditigal artist who made extensive research on Asian Fashion. She made extensive reference illustrations of Chinese and Vietnamese illustrations and also have other resources for other nationalities in her journal. Awesome resource.

Hairfinder Website - A site dedicated for hairstyles and hairstylists, providing resouces for types of haircuts for everyone, as well as books. A great resource for artist too!

UK Hairdressers Website - Another great hairstyle reference site that virtually have every single hairstyle captured for inspiration. And did I say every single hairstyle already?​

4. Vehicle Designs, Architecture and Landscapes

Not everything you will draw and paint will be organic, especially when you are doing sci-fi. You will oftentimes draw buildings, cars, ships, planes, and even mechs. And there are also times where you draw cities and landscapes! Practicing drawing these will gain you extensive drafting skills and a great practice for composition. Most of the basics you need to learn about this subject is already tackled deeply by Scott Robertson's books (How to Draw and How to Render) and your composition/color/painting books (e.g. Gurney's Imaginative Realism and Color and Light, and Loomis' Creative Illustration), so it's just the matter of expanding your visual library for inspiration (which is very important) and being more time-efficient with your drawings.

Recommended Books:

Architecture: The Whole Story - This book is a attempt to condense world architecture into one book. A pretty great resource to give you basic ideas and inspiration to a architecture era by region, and gives direction to further research/
​

Recommended Web Resources:

Car Body Design - As its name says, this site specializes with car designing. They have alot of resources ranging from books, articles, inspiration and tutorials that you can use on.

Cubebrush: Tips to Designing Sci-Fi designs - Mark Brunet gives tips for making inspired Sci-Fi designs.​

5. Stylization, Cartooning, Comics and Manga

Of course, each of us wants to draw on a particular style. Some will want to draw Western Comic-style, and some will want to draw Japanese Manga-style. Despite that, it's still important to draw realistic at first so we will have a good reference (The real world). When we have that reference, we will be able to decipher what looks believable and why is it believable. With that foundational knowledge, we can see that each style (whether it's cartoons, caricatures, comics or manga) is just a stylized/symbolized version of what we see in reality, and it will enable us to make sound judgments when drawing. When we get that foundation, we can easily go to a favored style quite easily or even explore infinite amount of styles depending on your artistic goals.

Aside from stylization, if you plan to actually make comic/manga strips, you need to learn proper organization and composition that requires different set of skills, like planning your setting, sequencing, fonts, general writing skills, even art styles, among with other things, with the goal of readability, beauty, storytelling and expression in mind.

Recommended Books for Comic Theory and Comic Studies:

Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud – This is one awesome Comic Theory Book, which will make you realize how important many elements that are mostly ignored in comics. The book is presented like a comic book and tackles many important concepts WHILE proving that concepts right before your eyes. There is a lot of concepts presented like sequencing, symbolism, closure, timing and many more. This is a must read for artists even when you are not going for making comics or manga, as the insights alone are worth it.

Comics and Sequential Art by Will Eisner – This is another Comic/Sequential Art Theory book that presents itself as more formal compared to McCloud's Understanding Comics. After all, this book came out first. This presents the same elements in comics like speech bubbles, timing, frames and many more and present it formally along with its applications for storytelling and composition.

Framed Ink by Marcos Mateu-Mestre – This is a composition book that's focused to comic book artist. But even then, it still stands out for being just plain awesome composition book. It emphasizes the fact that you can tell different kinds of stories with the same picture by changing lighting, point-of-views and many other fundamental concepts, all for the sake of dramatization and/or storytelling.

How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way by Stan Lee – This is a classic comic instructional book that is still used after the years aimed for newly aspiring illustrators that haven't started drawing. This book is pretty much art fundamentals book compacted to 1 book, as it teaches you perspective, mass conception of both head and figure, and many other things that you have already learned with Loomis, all with comic book purposes in mind. The key thing to take away from this book is some of the design decisions to portray dramatic effects like heroic proportions, foreshortening, etc.​

Recommended Books for Manga-Focused Studies:

Mastering Manga 1 & 2 by Mark Crilley – Mark Crilley's Manga Tutorial Books. He teaches manga art that's approachable to people who haven't started drawing at all, but it's still a great manga style book for experienced illustrators. He first illustrates the degrees of differences of semi-realistic drawings to extreme cartoony drawings (especially chibis), and also provide templates to drawing different manga styles, varied proportions, body types, and age. He also tackle a bit about doing manga compositions for the aspiring mangaka.

How to Draw Manga: Sketching Series – At first, I was skeptical to How to Draw Manga books (due to some books with badly explained concepts), but this one is actually good material. It still teaches you step by step which is geared for beginning artists, but it doesn't forget to teach fundamental concepts and explain the design decisions (especially when abstracting the features). So far, this series is like an art fundamental course aimed for manga artist which is something I can recommend on.

Beginner's Guide to Creating Manga Art by Cummings and Ordonez – Despite the title says, this isn't a beginner's manga book. To appreciate this book, you need to have a initial experience with drawing manga or drawing in general. The great thing about this book is that it shows great digital workflows (workflow = drawing/painting flowchart) that you can use.

Monster Book of Manga Series – These books are excellent reference material. KEYWORD: REFERENCE. These books are in no way "instructional", but what they do is to provide references, inspiration and a little bit of background for many featured character design templates. Each book got a lot of illustrations for each char template and show you a flowchart on how they paint it digitally, giving commentary instead of direct instruction. These are high quality reference and inspiration material that isn't only exclusive to mangakas.​

Recommended Books for Cartooning and Caricature-Focused Studies:

Fun with A Pencil by Andrew Loomis -

The Mad Art of Caricature by Tom Richmond -

​

6. Fundamentals of Animation

When you want to venture into animation, it's important to learn a little bit of Physics to have a reference of what works in reality. Having that reference/guide of what happens for real will enable us to have a parameter when exaggerating. We can make movements stick to realistic or we can go Dragon Ball Z if we like depending on what do we want to portray, and still make it believable. Even if you are not animating, it's still a good thing to study Physics to make dynamic and moving poses believable.

Now, as you have the proper knowledge of movement, the problem comes in on how will it be expressed in a 2D medium, and doing it with means of expression. With animating, you will learn the concept of animation through rapid succession of drawings called frames. And you will learn efficient ways to draw dynamic movement, from key frames and in betweens.

Recommended Books:

The Animator's Survival Kit by Richard Williams – When I'm looking for materials for animation, this is the first book that people strongly recommended, and now I understand why. This is a great resource for animation beginners and great reminding resource for vets alike, filled with timeless advice and methods in animation. This is pretty much THE Animation 101 book.

The Illusion of Life by Thomas and Johnson - Another great animation book full of insights on the animator's job. The authors talk about their history with Walt Disney and the processes and methods they have learned in the job that eventually became the standards of animation.

​

Recommended Web Resources:

Alejandro Garcia's Channel – Prof. Alejandro Garcia teaches basic physics/mechanics for use of artists and animators. This gives you the concepts of the physics theories that artists may need without going to the gruntwork of computation. A really great resource all around, and it's badly needed because of the currently lacking material for physics for artists.

Drawing with Jazza – Jazza's channel provides a substantial amount of lessons especially with the use of Adobe Flash in animation. A pretty modern take on animation in general with the introduction of digital tools.​

7. Fundamentals of Modelling and Sculpting

Cause why not? The 3D medium is general have great advantages in animation and film over 2D animation, but it also requires different physical skillset. Don't let the skillset requirement stop you from learning it! 3D Art can also be used to enhance your 2D drawings and illustrations! Yes, 3D software requires different physical skillset compared to drawing, but the foundational skills is still there, like mass conception, color theory, and anatomy. 2D and 3D as a medium have advantages and disadvantages, and it's good to diversify our skillset!

Expected Topics Include:

Traditional and Digital Sculpting
3D Modeling
Texturing
Lighting
Rigging and 3D Animation​

Recommended Books:

Sculpting the Figure in Clay by Peter Rubino - A highly recommended book for traditional sculpting, which shows you the necessary tools you need, and sculpting the figure, from block forms, landmarks up to the naturally time-consuming detailing work. A great sculpting book for wide-ranged levels of sculpting skills.

Philippe Faraut's Sculpting Books Series - A great fundamental sculpting course for the aspiring sculptor, where concepts transcends both traditional and digital sculpting. Philippe Faraut is a well renowned sculptor and a great teacher, and it shows in these books. A tad bit pricey, but well worth it.(Now we just gotta wait until his drapery-focused book comes...)

3D Art Essentials by Ami Chopine – This book is a nice introduction to 3D Art, which gives you a rough idea of how modeling, rigging, texturing, and lighting works when working 3D. This book isn't a software-specific book, which has upsides and downsides. It goes straight to the point on the tools and its concepts (like Polygons, NURBS, UV Maps etc.) but it doesn't teach you how to navigate on your particular software of choice/availability. This is a nice fundamental book that needs to be alongside your software tutorial/book.​

[/INDENT][/INDENT]

E. Pipelines for Film and/or Game Development

A. Job Expectations

Maybe, after learning and getting far on art, you might desire to do this for a living, and I salute you! Being willing to take that next step is a pretty big decision, and it will require alot, but hey, if you love your job, why not do it right?

If you are willing to step your art into a career, not only you need to have quality skills, but also knowledge on what you can do and you can offer. When working with gaming or film projects, you need to be sure that you need to be efficient at a specific job that you have to do. Art as a hobby can be a totally different thing compared as a job, and it will need a different mindset that can be likened to a engineer (where you design and solve problems based on client needs, while not blowing the budget and schedule).

Recommended Books:

How to Become a Video Game Artist by Sam Kennedy – This book is made to be an introduction to people who aspire to become a videogame artists. It introduces the jobs of the game development team, discusses the art-related jobs in-depth and also shows the needed skills on those given jobs. This is a nice book that will help you to know the expectations in the game development job.​

B. Software and Workflow

A proverb says "A man blames his tools for his lack of skills", and that can be right for a lot of times, but it's also foolish to get the inappropriate tool for the job. Especially for a fast-paced world, time is really essential and you want tools that not only delivers in quality but also save alot of time.

This is why most artists go for digital because of time efficiency.You do not have to wait for paint to dry or for the sculpt to harden. You can also easily modify them in seconds and of course, CTRL+Z (undo). But even with that, each software out in the market have different interface, shortcuts, and general strengths and weaknesses. Knowing and Mastering them along with your Fundamental Art skills is essential to even tap with the benefits, and mastering a software can be as hard by itself.

Bitmap-Based Softwares

Adobe Photoshop -

Corel Painter -

Autodesk Sketchbook Pro -

SmithMicro Manga Studio -

Ambient Design Artrage -
​

Vector-Based Softwares

Adobe Illustrator

SmithMicro Anime Studio

Adobe Flash Professional
​

Digital Modeling Softwares

Autodesk Maya

Blender

Autodesk 3DS Max

​

Digital Sculpting Softwares

Pixologic ZBrush

Autodesk Mudbox​

Online Resource for more Books:

Parkablogs Masterlists of Instructional & Reference Books and Game/Film Official Art Books - Parkablogs have reviewed many books over the past years and compiled on these masterlists. The first link consist of books about perspective, color theory, painting, animating, 3D modeling and many more topics, compiled on one link. The second consists of official art books of film, comic, and gaming franchises that serves as great reference and inspiration to artists.
​

And my old post...
Hey I got finalist in the World of Warcraft Argus art contest :)

not top 3 sadly, I was really hoping for that collectors edition!

 

[Skwerl]

Woo, hi art era, I guess I do jet porn and tank and stuff??? http://pvtskwerl.tumblr.com/

 

[chumps]

.

 

[Inquisitive_Ghost]

I'm going to watch this thread and feel guilty because I keep spending my free time on video games and ERA instead of on art.

 

[XaviConcept]

Last big'ish piece from a couple of weeks ago. Always enjoy doing Final Fantasy fanart

https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/ragingspaniard/tifa-lockhart/https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/ragingspaniard/tifa-lockhart/https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/ragingspaniard/tifa-lockhart/

 

[DM_Uselink]

The old thread was several years old. Let's keep this one going! Some digital work for a change! Here's a drawing I did for the Character Design Challenge group on Facebook...

...and here's where you can find me to see the rest of my stuff. >>> Instagram, Artstation

 

[XaviConcept]

Not bad, Noe! I think you could push the leg in the foreground further so it can distinguish itself more from the back leg value wise. The bounce light is a nice touch but since its being used uniformly throughout (the forearm in the front is receiving the same amount of bounce light than the arm in the back) you are not getting the most advantage out of that technique

 

[Jintor]

I need tricks to force myself into drawing. Stuff like art trades or combat comics or something.

Inktober was a good start, I might coast on a few ideas I generated from that for a bit

 

[Chekhonte]

I wish these threads moved faster. I like seeing what other people are working on. I get it though. Drawing takes time and it's a hobby for most of us.

 

[XaviConcept]

I need tricks to force myself into drawing. Stuff like art trades or combat comics or something.

Inktober was a good start, I might coast on a few ideas I generated from that for a bit

Click to shrink...

I could give you some of my work to ink or color, if youd like!

In other forums sometimes we do collab challenges as well, which we could do here

I wish these threads moved faster. I like seeing what other people are working on. I get it though. Drawing takes time and it's a hobby for most of us.

Click to shrink...

Im working on Indivisible stuff right now, cant show you :(

Last thing I drew was a Caulifla redesign from Dragon Ball Super. Not a fan of her basic ass design

 

[Graefellsom]

Here's the large version of my profile picture. 4 colour screen print.. edition of 17
Was wanting an art thread. Wanna see what Artsetera got!

 

[DM_Uselink]

Not bad, Noe! I think you could push the leg in the foreground further so it can distinguish itself more from the back leg value wise. The bounce light is a nice touch but since its being used uniformly throughout (the forearm in the front is receiving the same amount of bounce light than the arm in the back) you are not getting the most advantage out of that technique

Click to shrink...

Thanks! Yeah these are the things I tend to overlook when I'm rushing to meet a deadline. I suffer a slight Rob Liefeld effect (neglecting the feet) sometimes haha. Also, you are correct. The bounce light has a bit of a flattening effect on it.

Are you taking that DBS drawing further?

I wish these threads moved faster. I like seeing what other people are working on. I get it though. Drawing takes time and it's a hobby for most of us.

Click to shrink...

Perhaps checking out the drawing a day thread will help with the wait time. I am also working and sitting on stuff I can't show unfortunately.

 

[XaviConcept]

Thanks! Yeah these are the things I tend to overlook when I'm rushing to meet a deadline. I suffer a slight Rob Liefeld effect (neglecting the feet) sometimes haha. Also, you are correct. The bounce light has a bit of a flattening effect on it.

Are you taking that DBS drawing further?

Click to shrink...

One thing that helped me with avoiding the Liefeld feet issue is to get used to drawing a character feet first. Sounds insane and it will be horrible at first but it really helps.

Yeah I'll do something with it once life slows down a tiny bit. Waaay too much on my plate

(Life hint: dont lose your wallet along with your ID, SS card and Greencard one month before getting a new job)

 

[Chekhonte]

I didn't know about the drawing a day thread. I'm new enough to have not have figured out what migrated and what didn't.

Thanks for the tip.

 

[XaviConcept]

I didn't know about the drawing a day thread. I'm new enough to have not have figured out what migrated and what didn't.

Thanks for the tip.

Click to shrink...

Theres a link in the OP :)

 

[Chekhonte]

Theres a link in the OP :)

Click to shrink...

well color me a big dumdum.

 

[bunkitz]

Ahh! Awesome thread, OP! Definitely gonna watch this thread.

I'm gonna feel embarrassed to post most of my stuff, but I'll prove myself wrong about that and come up with stuff I'm satisfied with enough to share. I got myself a tablet earlier this year, but I'm focusing on improving my work with traditional first before I really dive into that. Although, I do wanna give it a spin again and try doing some stuff digitally.

I don't know much about tools, and I don't have much of a budget... but I do plan on treating myself to some coloring materials this Christmas. I've only got a mechanical pencil and two Uni Pin pens to work with, which is a little frustrating. I've been considering getting either markers or colored pencils, and maybe a brush pen for inking and cause I kinda miss doing (Chinese) calligraphy. Used to do them as part of our schoolwork.

So... any tips or recommendations?

 

[Apple]

Hello art thread!

I'm not sure how many of you are familiar with scratchboard, but that's mainly what I work in these days. Scratchboards are generally a white clay board and coated with a dark black ink. When you scratch the surface, the ink is removed and the white clay underneath is revealed. You can think of it as 'drawing the light' I suppose, and it can produce high contrast images with very fine detail.

Here's some of my more recent work:

 

[Graefellsom]

Hello art thread!

I'm not sure how many of you are familiar with scratchboard, but that's mainly what I work in these days. Scratchboards are generally a white clay board and coated with a dark black ink. When you scratch the surface, the ink is removed and the white clay underneath is revealed. You can think of it as 'drawing the light' I suppose, and it can produce high contrast images with very fine detail

Click to shrink...

Great stuff! Have you ever throught about doing wood block prints? I think you could get great results

 

[XaviConcept]

Hello art thread!

I'm not sure how many of you are familiar with scratchboard, but that's mainly what I work in these days. Scratchboards are generally a white clay board and coated with a dark black ink. When you scratch the surface, the ink is removed and the white clay underneath is revealed. You can think of it as 'drawing the light' I suppose, and it can produce high contrast images with very fine detail.

Here's some of my more recent work:

Click to shrink...

I did a tiny bit of scratchboarding in college and I have to say, these are insane! Those gradients! Incredible work.

 

[Ultraviolet Mexican]

Hello art thread!

I'm not sure how many of you are familiar with scratchboard, but that's mainly what I work in these days. Scratchboards are generally a white clay board and coated with a dark black ink. When you scratch the surface, the ink is removed and the white clay underneath is revealed. You can think of it as 'drawing the light' I suppose, and it can produce high contrast images with very fine detail.

Here's some of my more recent work:

Click to shrink...

Fantastic work, dude. I wasnt familiar with scratchboard before getting to know Nicolas Delort's work

How do you do gradients on those? Or color? Or like.. even sketch on them

As for my work, I mainly work digital with a focus on comics. You can find me on twitter and insta

I also do some graphic design but thats not as fun to share as a skateboarding Spider-Man (for example)

Click to shrink...

I could give you some of my work to ink or color, if youd like!

In other forums sometimes we do collab challenges as well, which we could do here

Im working on Indivisible stuff right now, cant show you :(

Last thing I drew was a Caulifla redesign from Dragon Ball Super. Not a fan of her basic ass design

Click to shrink...

That Caulifla is cool. Super has a lot of interesting designs and a lot of super bland ones. If you're open to a collab challenge, do you mind if I ink and color your Caulifla design?

 

[XaviConcept]

If you're open to a collab challenge, do you mind if I ink and color your Caulifla design?

Click to shrink...

Would be thrilled, I should scan it properly first though, give me a few minutes!

 

[XaviConcept]

Ok, Heres the edited file as a jpg. This is how I usually start when I decide to ink or color. GIANT image if you click on it.

Click to shrink...

Much better option though, its the psd file. Here you have the raw pencils along with the adjustment layers you can modify to show more or less of the pencils, download here

 

[plngsplsh]

Here's the large version of my profile picture. 4 colour screen print.. edition of 17
Was wanting an art thread. Wanna see what Artsetera got!

Click to shrink...

I don't have anything to contribute except my opinion and my opinion is: this looks great.

 

[Graefellsom]

I don't have anything to contribute except my opinion and my opinion is: this looks great.

Click to shrink...

Thank you for the compliment!

Here's a print I did 3 or so years ago. It's two colour photo-collage with some drawing, the second layer(silvery bronze) ended up pointlessly subtle. My weirder/darker prints like these never really sold which I can understand.. so moved back to doing cuter prints which is more me anyway

 

[Camille_]

Suppose I should post the rest of my Inktober (well, late-ktober at this point) series here, since it's just a regular illustration series at this point!

So here's today's character, P for Piper:

 

[DM_Uselink]

One thing that helped me with avoiding the Liefeld feet issue is to get used to drawing a character feet first. Sounds insane and it will be horrible at first but it really helps.

Yeah I'll do something with it once life slows down a tiny bit. Waaay too much on my plate

(Life hint: dont lose your wallet along with your ID, SS card and Greencard one month before getting a new job)

Click to shrink...

Dang, sorry to hear about your wallet. New job sounds like a good thing however! May the force be with you! :)

Hello art thread!

I'm not sure how many of you are familiar with scratchboard, but that's mainly what I work in these days. Scratchboards are generally a white clay board and coated with a dark black ink. When you scratch the surface, the ink is removed and the white clay underneath is revealed. You can think of it as 'drawing the light' I suppose, and it can produce high contrast images with very fine detail.

Here's some of my more recent work:

Click to shrink...

Nice! I also did a bit during school. Mostly graphic looking stuff. Great rendering on these!

Thank you for the compliment!

Here's a print I did 3 or so years ago. It's two colour photo-collage with some drawing, the second layer(silvery bronze) ended up pointlessly subtle. My weirder/darker prints like these never really sold which I can understand.. so moved back to doing cuter prints which is more me anyway

Click to shrink...

I like the texture work going on in this piece. Looking forward to seeing more.

Suppose I should post the rest of my Inktober (well, late-ktober at this point) series here, since it's just a regular illustration series at this point!

So here's today's character, P for Piper:

Click to shrink...

The Inktober thread will probably loose steam (I think it already did?) So yes, please post here! Didn't comment much on the previous threads, but I really dig your work here and what you are doing in the indie dev thread.


Not sure what thread to post this as it is a quick concept sketch to show a bit of iteration. I'm gonna go with my boy Raging Spaniard's thread for now, unless people decide to make a mega-thread (is this it?)

 

[XaviConcept]

Well its mostly a mini thread right now lol but yeah, its meant for people to post whatever theyre working on.

Nice concepts! I think they would benefit from a bit of signage on the side as they seem like some sort of transport vessel, maybe some wear and tear options?

 

[Camille_]

The Inktober thread will probably loose steam (I think it already did?) So yes, please post here! Didn't comment much on the previous threads, but I really dig your work here and what you are doing in the indie dev thread.


Not sure what thread to post this as it is a quick concept sketch to show a bit of iteration. I'm gonna go with my boy Raging Spaniard's thread for now, unless people decide to make a mega-thread (is this it?)

Click to shrink...

Oh, that's really kind of you to say - I wish I had more to offer in exchange about your own work, but I'm simply in awe and a little bit intimidated :-D Looks fantastic, though, and I'm looking forward to seeing more (and taking notes :-D)!

Here's today's heroine, hopefully a more familiar face around these parts:

 

[Parsnip]

Figured this would be a good thread to ask, did the "Free portrait drawing inside" thread (and anyone/everyone who contributed to it) make it over from the other forum?

I loved that thread.

 

[DiipuSurotu]

Figured this would be a good thread to ask, did the "Free portrait drawing inside" thread (and anyone/everyone who contributed to it) make it over from the other forum?

I loved that thread.

Click to shrink...

I asked this in the post your pictures thread and Prax said H.Protagonist is "working on it". I definitely would love for that thread to come back (although it's a shame that they were quite a lot of people who requested drawings and then never came back to thank the artists who fulfilled said requests).

 

[Parsnip]

I asked this in the post your pictures thread and Prax said H.Protagonist is "working on it". I definitely would love for that thread to come back (although it's a shame that they were quite a lot of people who requested drawings and then never came back to thank the artists who fulfilled said requests).

Click to shrink...

Sounds good, looking forward to it.

 

[Graefellsom]

I like the texture work going on in this piece. Looking forward to seeing more.

Click to shrink...

Thanks! Really digging your ship design.. checked out your website as well.. really great work!

 

[Cantaim]

Sorry if this is too off topic but can anyone here give any recommendations on a good program to start drawing? I practiced a lot for a year when I was in high school but I had to stop after that year as my life picked up. It finally calmed down again after a few years and I really wanna get back into drawing but I don't know where to start.

 

[XaviConcept]

Sorry if this is too off topic but can anyone here give any recommendations on a good program to start drawing? I practiced a lot for a year when I was in high school but I had to stop after that year as my life picked up. It finally calmed down again after a few years and I really wanna get back into drawing but I don't know where to start.

Click to shrink...

If you have an iPad Pro then ProCreate is the standard. On desktop Photoshop is now available via susbcription and they just introduced a ton of great drawing tools.

 

[Crowtex]

Hi everyone, great stuff so far. Just finished this as a cover for my comic, I will try to post often in this thread.

 

[Prax]

Finally finished this guy! There's self-shadowing problems I didn't bother figuring out, but I gotta move onto the other character profile things. Just 6 more of these to go! I'll finally be able to rest in peace after.. (not really lol)

There's always cool new fandoms and art things going on and I always feel like I should join or try them out but.. No.. gotta focus on my own projects first..!

 

[chumps]

.

 

[hpkomic]

I'm still very proud of this Haunted Mansion tribute I did with characters from my webcomic for my patrons.

I'd also like to let anyone here who is making comics know that we have a webcomic creator OT now and we're hoping to make it a place for creators to share their work and for people who are wanting to make their own comics to pick our brains about how to do it.

 

[XaviConcept]

I'm still very proud of this Haunted Mansion tribute I did with characters from my webcomic for my patrons.

I'd also like to let anyone here who is making comics know that we have a webcomic creator OT now and we're hoping to make it a place for creators to share their work and for people who are wanting to make their own comics to pick our brains about how to do it.

Click to shrink...

Great idea! I'll add it to the OP when Im not on mobile. urban Scholar and I have been plotting a book collaboration for a while :)

Btw you might wanna fix your img link. Just removing the s from https should work

 

[Graefellsom]

Really lovely arts from all of you so far.
I've gone back and reworked a six year old print a bit, almost happy enough to get it on silk screen soon..
also apologies if I'm posting too much art

 

[Ultraviolet Mexican]

Ok, Heres the edited file as a jpg. This is how I usually start when I decide to ink or color. GIANT image if you click on it.



Much better option though, its the psd file. Here you have the raw pencils along with the adjustment layers you can modify to show more or less of the pencils, download here

Click to shrink...

Thanks! Here it is sullied by may colors! haha It was going pretty okay until I got to the face o_o

I need more painting practice.

Click to shrink...

 

[FSP]

Too much good stuff in here :O

Here's what I worked on today. Just some designs for a comic I'm working on,

Click to shrink...

 

[Camille_]

I'll have to color these eventually to fit in with those latest posts :-D Well, for now, I'll stick to my arbitrarily made-up rules, and here's one more:

Letters R, S and T are packed for a heroine-themed ABC - I had to make a number of cuts and hard choices, and I still have a good dozen coming, so strap in :-D

 

[NEO]

What drawing program does everyone use? I've just been using Photoshop.

 

[MrCow]

What drawing program does everyone use? I've just been using Photoshop.

Click to shrink...

I currently use Krita for drawing. It's open source and of course free, it's great for free hand drawing. The only thing it doesn't have is the amount of user generated brushes that photoshop has, other than that it's probably better for the purpose of drawing than ps.

I've also tried paint tool sai but I think Krita is the better alternative now.

I also tried to use Affinity Photo for drawing but to be honest it's a mess. Great for photo editing but painting is cumbersome and unintuitive.

Affinity Designer on the other hand is great for Vector drawing (probably better that Adobe Illustrator), but has the same problems as Photo when it comes to pure pixel based freehand drawing.

 

[Graefellsom]

I also tried to use Affinity Photo for drawing but to be honest it's a mess. Great for photo editing but painting is cumbersome and unintuitive.

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Yup. I brought Affinity for my ipad pro and the brushes/drawing are awful. There's a weird outline on them that I couldn't get rid of. I brought Affinity because I saw that it had a halftone feature but that too is really bad.. I thought it would be able to do a proper bitmap, but nope. I requested a refund for it.

I mostly use Procreate. It's really fantastic. One can create ones own brushes to, im getting to grips with it but I've gotten some good textures out of it. I still need to use photoshop in the end for my specific purposes though.

 

[FSP]

Photoshop has in-built line smoothing and other brush improvements, and is thus my go-to.

 

[UnluckyKate]

Woo, hi art era, I guess I do jet porn and tank and stuff??? http://pvtskwerl.tumblr.com/

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*opens your tumblr*
*sees Ace Combat Zero shit*

I love you