School starts tomorrow, and the first week is fully dedicated to socialize and get to know the other students, so I won't be able to do much work this week.
Just to put some exposition on all the ponies I'm posting, There's a monthly long event
going with a daily challenge and I'm trying to do each one. The characters I paint are mostly the
OCs of friends of mine or musicians I really enjoy.
Holy crap I wish I was being as productive as you D:
The values in those pony pictures are all really muted, you could level adjust (CTRL+L) them in photoshop and push the values and it makes them much better. Try painting with some with lighter lights and darker darks!
I know those double highlights in the eyes are accurate to the show's style, but I don't think they're really working in this painterly style you're using. See what it looks like when you play it realistic!
Thanks for the heads up, I think I should consider getting a calibrating tool for my cintiq, as I keep getting confused between my laptop monitor and the screen on the cintiq. I may also just be afraid of "going all the way" with the darks and lights, it may be something psychological. I'll also see about that highlight in the next ones.
I did some studies today, but the hand stuff got cut a bit short, as I'm starting to get real tired. I need some rest before school tomorrow.
Thanks, Olooriel! That's where I feel I'm the most lacking, so I try to improve there.
The environment piece was made for Conceptart.org EoW thingie.
First time I've participated there =)
Yeah, I definitely struggle a lot with gestures myself... in my thread someone recommended the youtube tutorials of Sycra and Proko on the subject, maybe they'll help you!
Thanks for the tips, Olooriel, I've seen some of their stuff from earlier on, and both of them provide with some great pointers.
There's a couple of days left of the daily pony thing, so don't worry, there won't
be as many of them in the future :P
I've done some more gestures, and tried to up the time to 60 seconds for each pose today,
and it feels really weird. I'm either slowing down too much or staying to fast.
I'm also working on a landscape for the EoW on conceptart.org, but I'll post wip next time.
Trying to use some of the colour and lighting from a study I did earlier this week.
One of my classes this semester revolves around animating in Flash. I've never done any animation before, but I'll try and post some of the very simple stuff I make when possible.
I could be wrong here but I think in your gestures you're drawing the lines that make up a shape instead of drawing the shape.
In other words, you're too concerned with drawing the right outlines of a form and you're missing the big shape that those outline make.
That...probably sounds super confusing sorry XD
Try doing gestures with a big brush that forces you draw in shapes rather than lines, I think something might click.
Thanks for all the help, Samszym.
I'm not sure if I totally understood what you meant,
but I tried doing some gestures doing what I think you meant.
I gave myself a little more time with these, 45sec each.
At first glance it works pretty good for some of the poses,
and so so on some of the others :P
Man, I smell some improvement here ^^ but why so many ponies :p? -I know they're part of a project, but still, why? Hehe-
Ok, I'm gonna give it a try to translate samszym a bit. Dunno if you've watched proko's vids on gestures carefully, otherwise you should -also draw along!-, and what he is trying to say, is probably that you shouldn't be watching the outlines of the figure you're drawing to much. Try to take a better look at the form. -or, perhaps, volume- as proko describes in the vids, things like a bean shape. This sounds simple, but: a leg is not two outlines, it's round, like a cilinder. It has form. This tricks us 2D artists many times. When one watches the outlines of the figure on the image one's darwing to much, he might lose that sense of form.
And well yeah, try to keep movements in your gestures, exagerrate, etc. You know the drill :p
Imo, I think they're coming along nicely. You're working hard (:
So, I don't know if I made sense earlier, and please if I'm wrong, someone correct me.
Thanks budgie, that's sort of what I was getting at.
I purposefully used the word shape instead of form, in gesture drawing I try to consider the rhythms and directions of the 2 dimensional shapes the body makes. So, I'd think about a noodle shape or a circle, as opposed to a cylinder or sphere.
Volume and form come after the gesture stage, those get thought about once the pose/silhouette and action and weight distribution are worked out. (In my process anyway)
but the core thing is, you have to realize that you're not drawing the outlines of the model, but the shapes that those outlines represent!
the letter D, for example. You would write and draw this symbol the same way, a straight line and an arc facing right. When you write it, all you're doing is making those lines. but when you draw it, you aren't making those lines, but the shape of a bullet flying to the right! (which happens to be represented by those lines)
The symbol you make (D) is the same, but the mindset you used to make it is different. And gesture drawing is all about being in the right mindset (in my opinion, anyway)
So in a way, I meant to say it looks like you're writing the outlines of the models you're seeing, instead of drawing the shapes those outlines contain. Hopefully that makes at least a little sense, it's kind of a tough thing to convey.
Budgie and Samszym, thank you very much to both of you for taking this much time out of your day to help me out. It's very much appreciated! Gestures aren't where I'm pouring most of my effort, but I DO want to get better at it, so I need all the help I can get. I'll try to take everything you've said to heart.
About the ponies, this here is the last batch for some time. I did them as a way to show some appreciation to some awesome people in that community. It's been taking up more of my time that it should've, but I'll do more other stuff now that it's done.
I'm working on another conceptart.org EoW, and will post it when it's done. Hopefully this weekend.
More random stuff, some anatomy, gestures and colour.
This is the first time I've posted any traditional work!
These two pieces are for some assignment for class,
I'm looking forward to when we transition over to digital stuff.
I'm having some issues coming up with interesting poses on my own when doing gestures,
any tips on how to come up with more interesting poses? I tend to draw people with their
back turned towards the viewer, I love backs :P
Most of my recent stuff, trying to do some of everything.
Almost this entire weekend have consisted of me fiddling around with animation (not school work for once). I'm pretty psyched and find it very interesting to work with, but it's super time consuming. I've gotten some newfound respect for animators!
As for your gesture question, remember that the shapes and pose can ALWAYS be pushed even further. If you thrust a hip to the side you can thrust it even further, if you raise a shoulder is can go even higher. Push the shape design until you break it then dial it back to something you're comfortable with.
This video might be helpful! http://radhowto.blogspot.com/2013/06/dem...rding.html
Samszym, thank you so much for doing all this to help me out with my gestures. I watched some of that video, and there's some really nice pointers there. I hope I'm not disappointing too much with my slow progress :P
I'm still hard at work with the animation. I'm hoping to finish the rough animation this week, so I'll upload it and link to it when I update my SB next time. It's really short when you look at the time spent on it, as I'm still learning the very basics.
I suck so bad at heads, so I'm doing more Loomis work. Been focusing on planes the last couple of days.
