Clumsy Waitress

[JyonnyNovice]

Hi! This is my first post in this section, my drawing isn't at the level of most of the people here so please be kind!

I've been doing a lot of anatomy study and am just having fun playing with what I've learned, decided I want to do a full painting.

Started with these thumbnails to figure out an idea and a pose:



Decided on a slapstick pinup / clumsy waitress style drawing and made this pencil sketch:



I need to fix a few things, from what I can notice,

- the man on the table needs to be moved further back - since he's closer to the picture plane than the dog but is way out of scale.

- the hotel in the background could be pushed into 3 point perspective since the viewing angle is low to the ground?

- Her torso twists but the stitching down the front stays the same width - need to foreshorten it

Does her torso need better shaping on the right side? sometimes I look at it and it looks disconnected and other times it looks ok (considering it's a stylised drawing)

Perhaps I'll tilt the horizon line even more to make it more dramatic...


Anything anyone notices that's off about this drawing? Or any advice for what I could do to give it more punch?

When I've got the composition sorted I will paint it in photoshop and make it look really nice!

Thanks for looking!

[JyonnyNovice]

Here's an update:

Tilted the horizon line, moved the man at the table, trying out the hotel in 3 point perspective, started cleaning up the line work (I was planning to just go straight in painting instead of doing an 'inked' drawing, but I don't know the best way to approach it; probably going to just make a clean line drawing and cell shade it).

Her raised foot bothers me, the perspective is wrong but my brain just can't seem to draw it right with a tablet >.<

[Adam Lina]

I like that you drew the dogs dick in. I feel like dog dicks are under-represented. With thumb nails you should draw a box for the whole image so you can get an idea of the composition. Also do a lot of thumb nails. You should try to exhaust every possibility that you can think of. And its good to lay in some basic values in the thumb nail stage.

[JyonnyNovice]

I like that you drew the dogs dick in. I feel like dog dicks are under-represented.

lol thanks, I guess I was playing on the humiliation aspect - she's just made a fool of herself and there's a dog with his dick out - although dogs dicks don't hang down like that, they kinda run up along their bodies (why can I picture that but not how a foot stretches back? >.<)

I should've done some full thumbnails, it started as just drawing a character then I decided to put a background after - I'm so slow at drawing full pages, the thought of going back and doing more thumbnails and drawing it again makes me so tired... I need to work on my stamina I think!

Although, I use the crop tool in photoshop to position things, since it has the grid of thirds on it; everything is positioned ok, I believe.



The top right intersection over the waitress (well, her booby) and nothing conflicting for attention on any of the other intersections. It seems balanced; the bar, barman and dog on the left midground, the waitress on the right foreground with a bit of the table behind her. Maybe the hotel could be shifted to the left, but I like that the sun will be shining through the gap between hotel and bar...

Anyway, I seem to be obsessing over small details, it's not my opus magnas or anything, I should probably just get on and colour it and start working on the next one - (with more thumbnails!)

[Buzuuk]

Hey !I dont want to ruin your motivation but I think you choosed a too complicated composition for you abilities right now. you may achieve it easyier by taking every single element and studying it first.
Anatomy for the dog, waiter and waitress and perspective for the background.
Remember, if you dont choose to do it on purpose dont put too many empty spaces on your illustration. Everything must be mastered to tell what you want. For now it looks like you put everything on your paper one by one, you have to take it as one thing to manage you composition.
I hope you understood cause it may be not well said :)

[JyonnyNovice]

Yea, you're spot on with your analysis Buzuuk, and it's probably better for my motivation - if I'd gone ahead and spent hours trying to develop all the background elements digitally (when I struggle with pen control and linework on a tablet), then painting and then wasn't satisfied I think it'd be a real blow (considering those hours could be spent getting better at other things).

Might just colour in the waitress since I kinda like her then put this one aside. Thanks for the comments guys!

[Amit Dutta]

If you were to approach this as a typical illustration, a workflow that tends to work for most people is to really put all the effort up front and then basically leave the finishing of the piece as a rendering exercise, so I would recommend going back a step before you put more into this.

Check out these posts for simple approaches to thumbnailing and value structure. Basically composition and values are what you want to focus on first and thumbnailing is about doing lots of mini-illustrations with these two things predominantly in mind. Don't do thumbnails with involved linework..think larger shapes and simplified values. You can do linework carefully afterwards on the solid bones of your prework. Hope it helps!

http://muddycolors.blogspot.co.nz/2012/0...cture.html
http://muddycolors.blogspot.co.nz/2012/1...nails.html
http://muddycolors.blogspot.co.nz/2010/1...bnail.html

[JyonnyNovice]

Thanks Monkeybread! I read those articles with great interest!

I did a short practice using thumbnails (not the waitress idea, something else), on the theme of refugee / migrants, a kind of fantasy world and did some thumbnails:



I'm starting to understand the process, however; when these thumbnails are drawn, they are supposed to be really quick right? Just to get as many different ideas down as possible, to really dig deep around your brain? Then when you have exhausted the process, and decided on a good one, you work on rendering that out into a finished drawing?

I'm confused as to where you focus on perspective, and scale and all that kind of thing - if I took a thumbnail then applied all kinds of perspective to it it could end up not looking like the thumbnail anymore -

Do you include all of that when you do the thumbnail? Maybe it's just cause I'm slow at setting up perspective grids that this process seems awkward...

[Amit Dutta]

It's all a question of experience. The more you have the better you get at eyeballing things like perspective and scale in thumbnails. Setting up a proper grid is fine for the final piece, but you can still pretty quickly draw in a few guides for yourself for each thumbnail that will work as an approximation. A line for the horizon, the vps you want and a few lines to give you a general grid. If you have a perspective brush, you can use that to help you create a grid quickly. It's just a brush of radial spokes, slap a couple of stamps of it on different layers and move around, and instant 2pt perspective.

You don't really even need to focus on perspective if you don't want as long as you have a nice balance of values and composition and have an idea what the perspective is. Of course the more you can put in, in terms of legibility of the thumbnail, the better it will be to inform you what the final would look like and which one to pick.

The thumbnail is a shorthand, to iron out the main issues so you're not constantly changing things in the render phase. If you haven't solved the composition, or nailed the value balance, or if the thumbnail doesn't look like anything, then you probably haven't done enough work on it.

Speed comes with practice. The idea is to be able to thumbnail quickly...maybe one every ten minutes or even less, but I would say just take your time first to get a feel. Try different techniques and see what works best for you. Concentrate on solving the main issues in each one, without focusing on too much detail, but so it still reads well and is understandable. The tendency when new to it, is to work too quickly and too sloppily and end up with a messy scribbly mush. The goal is to work accurately, but simply, in broad shapes and values. Figures should be accurate in gesture and proportion, not just stick figures for example. It's not a shorthand impressionistic thing, it's a mini accurate reproduction. Work at small sizes and zoomed out to stop you getting bogged down by detail and maintain the initial overall read of the thumb. Try using lasso tools and gradients to lay down accurate shapes and experiment with gradients to show value shifts easily. Try brushes with 100 percent opacity with no pressure on. Maybe do a quick sketch and then slap in some value underneath it, or work with 3 or 4 layers for foreground, midground, background to allow you to move things around quicker. It's all fun and games and experimentation!

[JyonnyNovice]

Thanks for taking the time to give me this detailed breakdown! This is really great information for me. When I'm ready to start my next piece I'll use this approach carefully and work more slowly. Thanks again!