Crimson Daggers — Art forum

Thanks Tygerson :D

Been watching Stephen Silver Interviews and talks for the last few days, what an awesome guy! I'd love to take one of his brick&mortar classes if I get a chance. Looking at his work and some model sheets from My Life as a Teenage Robot, I'm really amazed by how every single line or shape the artist puts int he character means something and adds to the effect, anything extra that doesn't help the character feel more like what its supposed to gets edited out! My designs feel so wasteful in comparison.
Gonna be working on some caricatures and character designs to help fight this and trying to focus on giving them cleaner lines than I have been. here's a big dump of doodles and stuff!

I think I'm gonna try to make sure I'm posting every day or every other day, editing this stuff took way too long XD

Stephen Silver is amazing, even if you dont have that much interest in animation, everything he says is golden.
Also, i'm really digging the style on that pokemon, clown picture.
It reminds me a bit of the art in the Etrian Odyssey games or the chiaroscuro shots in gurrenn lagann. xD Awesome!

thanks ed!

I really gotta put my brain to work and start finishing something :/

Lots of goofy and great cartoons mate, love your style as always.
Have you thought about doing a miniseries or something, I think it would be kickass if you did some kind of IP.

Great colour studies! Do you prefer traditional media over digital?

I love those traditional media sketches. They have some kind of organic qualities that just differs from 100% digital stuff even though both are done by hands. Keep 'em up!

your characters are acquiring a lot of motion, I like how you're experimenting a lot with shapes.

Thanks for the comments guys!
I do haver a couple story ideas I'm excited about, trying to find the time and motivation to bring them into existance

As for traditional media I can't really say I like it more than digital. Fact is I'm actually very apathetic about painting right now, ink and pencil are so far the only mediums I feel empathy with. Digital and traditional are just tools for learning and finishing stuff. But I don't hate painting any more, and I think as I continue to use gouache I'll find some stuff I like about it. I do agree, traditional stuff can give you this texture and depth that's impossible in digital and it's pretty cool to see. Plus I'm definitely learning a lot more mixing my own colors than picking them out of a window.

sketchdump before bed, hasn't been an exceedingly productive week :/

color is insanity and I don't really understand how to use more than 1 hue in a painting. something to work on I guess.

My oh my Sam, you've improved sooooooooo damned muuuch since I last checked in year o: like, holy balls, it's awesome!! Everything's just so full of energy - all of those studies are definitely paying off!
Digging the ink work and those hands... ugh... making me feel bad about myself, keep it up haha
Also, I'm looking forward to seeing these stories come to fruition

Keep it up, thanks for support and keep killing it Sam! :)

I like the yellow-pink study. :) Colours - that's something tricky, but definitely worth practicing.

Hey Sam!
Great colorstudies in post #263, great to see that you have the guts to change the originals a bit. Looks like you're getting the information that you need from them, since the mood looks solid. While on the topic of guts you seem to be able to handle most subject matters too (thinking about those classrooms and torture devices...wait what?)

I'd love to see more like that Pokemon clown design, has so much character going on with the juxtaposition of his attire versus expression.

Keep kicking it man! You're heading towards the realms of Stephen Silver, don't you even dare to doubt it!

Something about the angular way you draw Kirby is appealing.

Now that I think about it, the angular way you do your cartoony stuff in general is just appealing.

Thanks guys!!
Haven't done a good job managing my time this week, I'm not really feeling motivated.

I just gotta power through this and draw my butt off! Gotta be my own boss and spend my time doing art like it's my job, or I'll never be able to get a job doing it!

Not much to show this update, been doing a few technique studies. I need to get more sensitivity and control in my drawings. Next to pros who can put any value in any shape anywhere they want my hand just feels really clunky and heavy.

Wohoaaa, Hellboy and the (last) samurai!

Maybe a schedule would help? I benefited a loooot. Changed it few times, but in the end it works for me and motivates me :)

ya...I have something I'm trying to get myself to stick to, sort of a daily planner where I write down how i spent the day, and can write down things up to a couple hours in the future so I've spent my time and must hold myself accountable. hasn't quite worked yet...gotta get more discipline D:<

Here's today's measly haul. Practicing for my application to do caricatures at an amusement park. It's way harder than I expected! On my study list: getting confident drawing hands and how to make hair look like hair

Nice man, As always solid steady progress here!

And yeah charicatures are stoooopid hard!

Great updates! Loving your hands, they are very expressive (like all of your work XD)
I think your caricatures are already really good. I remember having tried it as well and I thought it's super hard to exaggerate on one hand and yet keep the likeness on the other. One must really have a very keen eye for the characteristics of the face. I can't really help you out or say something constructive, so I'll just say keep up the great work and good luck with your application! (:

Haha, it's me again! I just randomly stumbled across an artist who does crazy cool caricatures (I think) while I was browsing around for inspiration. Here's his Website: >> Click Click <<. I just thought I might dump this link here, I mean as I said your caricatures are already fine, but maybe for further inspiration. Also the traditional works of this artist are amazing, haha.

ahh caricatures can be very fun . even though i havent done much but i remembered i was having a blast doing those stuff.
i have a question: do you get to school nowadays? if you do , how do you manage your time studying on your own compared to studying in school?

i dont got much to say coz im miles away from you in terms of skill level so..... yeah about motivation though . thinking why we got to drawing in the first place really helps....

P.S: my life is a teenage robot was my childhood :)

Man, your lines are so confident and beatiful! After having started sketching in pen as well recently, I admire your stuff even more :p Also, very stupid question: What kind of pen are you using for those pen-gestures? Rollerball thing? Refillable pen? Cheap or a special brand? I never thought this might be a problem, but after doing my gestures for like two weeks with different pens, I run into the problem that the most expensive ones are those that feel the best (soft and not straining the wrist), and are empty after like 3 days -_-

The daily planner thing sounds good, as long as you stick to it - maybe some external motivator might help you as well? Like rewarding yourself for a certain amount of studies/time/starting early etc?