Rognoll's Sketchbook

[atrenr]

You're construction has gotten loads better since my last visit! I'd suggest doing some color studies but other than that, keep up the grind!

[Jaik]

Ahahaha, that black and white portrait in post 198, I did the exact same study about a year ago and failed just as much, dont worry lol you will get there!

Some of your environments are looking a little candy coloured and the values are weak. As a suggestion which is something a bit different to do, find some background of some good animes (fairytail is a good one, as is some of the miyazaki moves, though avoid his movies if you dont want to feel like killing yourself for how amazing some of the background are) and do some studies of that. The way they handle values and colours has a lot to teach people.

This is a really good site for these http://anime-backgrounds.tumblr.com/

Keep on keeping on man. Looking great!

[Rognoll]

I haven't been here in a while!

I've been working hard on designing some characters right and I've come up with these.







Aaaaand a quick cartoon selfie

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@Artenr: Thank you! Yeah, I've got to keep practicing color and value!

@Jaik: Holy crap What an awesome resource! Thanks a lot! It has been so useful!

[Samszym]

Man, your shape designs are really interesting and you've got some cool ideas! I think you're gonna be a real powerhouse once you start nailing that construction and draftsmanship. I'd suggest doing some studies of clothing, I notice you're using lots of sharp angles and lines on material that looks like it would be soft and rounder.

[Tygerson]

Such a great variety of characters--each with such a distinct silhouette. I love how even the smoke of the one guy is jagged.

And the birds nesting in the hair cracked me up.

[Rognoll]

OK, I'm back!

@Sam: Wow! That's encouraging, thanks! Yeah, I tend to do everything spiky, I keep telling myself that it's a "style" but sometimes it's just wrong. I've been working in my construcion a lot.

@Tyger: Whoa! Thank you! Yeah, I stole that from radagast. In my defense, I'm a better comic relief than him.

Now, some of the studies I've been doing recently. These are the ones I've been doing digitally.

Some cartoonish face studies


And now some character studies

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[meat]

Welcome back! I still love the variety of characters you are coming up with. And I love your coloring style. It's marker-like, but it's digital :)

[Gliger]

Mmmmhh nice!! I see some good stuff, in all seriousness your work is atractive, I can see you have a feel for what you are going for, that's awesome.
As a crit, do some research on lineweight, scott robertson has this video on it, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0zl5NnEAyU It'll help your lines to depict form and depth, those noses seem flat, this should help you.

PD: I can see you are already experimenting with lineweight but some guidelines and tips from scott will help you. If you by any chance have the book ''Shadowline'' by Iain Mccaig, he has just a couple of words about it that helped me a lot, you might find it online, or just look at his work, he's really good at it and you'll learn a lot from his drawings if you study them.

[Tygerson]

So many cool head shapes! Each just bursting with personality! The one guy with the one bulging eyeball is unforgettable. I like the colors on the ones you polished up.

[Kaffer]

Awesome facial expressions! I love the diversity

[Samszym]

Nice new characters!!! Something I've been noticing a little bit, a lot of artists will either use line to describe their details and then color them with very simple, flat coloring, or instead use really simple, decorative lines with more complicated tones to describe details. Might be fun to play around with making either your tone or lines a lot simpler, since you tend to have a lot to look at in both of them.

keep up the good work!

[Rognoll]

Thank you guys!

@Meat: Thank you Meat! Yeah, I'm not comfortable with it yet, I jus tlike doing many little lines.

@Gliger: That was extremely useful! Thank you so much for the tip!

@Tygerson: Thanks! I't still working on the "polishing" part though.

@Kaffer: Thank you!

@Sam: Hey, thanks a lot! That's a great idea, mybe my drawings have too many overlapping details, I've started trying both styles (less lines, more color detail and vice versa) I'll upload them as I work on them.

Now, more character development. trying to implement some line value tips.





Also, I've been using some cool environment artists as a reference for studies. I'm trying to translate that composition to comicbook style, but I suck at it, any advices?

These two are John Avon studies. God, I suck at this.

[aks9]

Hey man!
your drawings are really cool and the character's character really shows. they're really vibrant. your line stuff is really expressive and the detailing on the two knight characters is really cool!

a crit/suggestion on the knight with the shield would be to add the "thickness" side of the shield and the shield's handle, we can only see one plane but we should be able to see the sides too. you've sort of implied them by making the line thicker but i think it would be a good idea to practice going the full way and outlining the plane itself and to get in the habit of doing that

as for the enviros, in the first one i think the problem is how messy it is, its hard to tell apart the fore, mid and background.
i think cleaning up the lines can help with this - drawing the elements more carefully and being more deliberate with the lines, which ones are thick and thin. as a given, foreground lines should be thicker in general, but still get thinner as they recede. mid and background elements would have less lines and thiner lines - you're already doing this to an extent, but to me it seems going further and making it universal across the image would be the best bet. you can do it with these very two images, rather than a new one, so you can get a proper grasp of the difference, and to actually focus on that particular exercise instead of having to fight two battles (one of making a new image and design, and two of also incorporating the new line ideas. this way you get two birds with one stone: you get to improve these pictures you've already made, and you get to practice the line stuff in relative isolation).
the other thing i think is that the further back in the background something is, the less detailing it should have. in the 2nd enviro this already works pretty well, in the 1st one i think there is a bit too much line gradation on the background elements, which sort of makes the whole thing messy.

the way i'd personally approach this, is to open a copy of the environment, set the layer opacity to 10% so you can faintly see it, and then on a new layer, redraw the whole thing, being very careful and deliberate with making the elements separate and cleanly drawn. zoom in for squiggly bits like windows.

finally, have you tried any of the 3d construction "wrap around" practices? sort of like wrapping lines around the 3d-ness of your objects. it's a helpful way of making forms more apparent both in your mind and to the viewer.

ok man good work :)

[crackedskull]

Nice linedrawings man, cool to see your improvement.

[Rognoll]

@Aks9: Hey, thank you so much for that insight! I have to work a lot more on my lines.

@Crackedskull: Thank you, man!

I'm trying to approach color in different ways, what do you guys think?

[Rognoll]

Some inking practices






And another comic coloring attempt. The generic background ruins everything.



What do you think? Crits are extremely helpful.

[meat]

The armor could use some extra contrast - even if it's scratched up, well-used armor - to push the metal feel. Don't know if these will be useful to you, but take a look:
https://sites.google.com/site/coloringby...coloring-2
https://sites.google.com/site/coloringbydelgaduk/home

[Rognoll]

some coloring practices





Something I don't understand is, even though the last one looks more polished, why does the first one's composition look better as a whole?. Any insights? Thanks guys.

@Meat: I had already seen that via Chris Oately, but I hadn't taken it into consideration. It was really useful. Thanks!

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Also, a few months ago I did some comicbook pages just for practice, most of them are not lettered, though. I'd really appreciate your feedback. A lot.

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[Samszym]

I think the way the image worked changed because in the first one the foreground character has the highest value contrast out of anything in the picture, which gives it a bit of atmospheric perspective. He has an easier read than anyone and a lot of areas where he pops out. In the second image the knight character has more contrast and no character really stands out as light against dark anywhere, so it's harder to see what's going on at first glance.
A good test for this is to squint your eyes or maybe apply a 25 pixel gaussian blur to the image and see if you can still identify the figures and shapes for what they are. If you've composed your image with good clarity you'll still be able to make out the important figured, even with everything blurred. Howard Pyle once said "After the first half-hour of work, your lay-in should kill at a hundred yards", meaning your value structure should be so clear that even if someone were looking at a print of your image from across a long hallway he'd still be able to tell what's going on.

I'd recommend doing what my teachers call a notan, basically drawing a thumbnail sized version of your image using only pure black and white, no grey or hatching at all. Doing this forces you to decide what is light and what is dark and helps you make a clear read.

[crackedskull]

Having fun looking at your comics. Keep it up man :)