Thanks man, I can't wait too:D Tomorrow I'm going to a new doctor, I hope it'll be the last one:)
The update... As I said, I actually regressed by doing study-study stuff, which I realized after sketching these:
Where did that random franco-belgian comic stuff came from lol:)
So, I got back to ma main man Sadamoto and did some eyeing and application...
The interesting thing is, I did ONE quick study (the x-rayed nadia) and I got sorta back on track as soon as I went on with drawing from imagination. So, lesson learned:)
Really like that evangelion paintover got some really nice highlights & brightness to the hair and body, and yeah as Madzia said really digging your characters.
Hope your hand situation is coming along well :).
Quote:Really like the characters, Line flows so beautifully in your design. Looks like Hampton helped a lot :)
Quote:and yeah as Madzia said really digging your characters.
Wow, thanks:D I find my characters stiff and unappealing, so that kind of comment really means a lot to me, as it basically means I have progressed but I'm unable to see it:) Which is, of course, great:)
Quote:Really like that evangelion paintover got some really nice highlights & brightness to the hair and body
Thanks, I also like the hair, but it's totally different from the face, it just goes to show how my mind approached the whole operation lol:) "ok, gentle with the face, we can't de-asuka her, oh hair, go wild, doesn't matter":)
It's only after I discovered the topic for those paintovers when I realized that people actually paint stuff over:D
Quote:Hope your hand situation is coming along well :).
Ah yes, the doctor examined me for like an hour and a half and it seems the most important thing is that there's no atrophy and if it's been five months with no atrophy, it should mean it's something reparable/minor. But since the symptoms aren't minor (I can't do stuff), I might have some "combo", for example, pinched nerve plus tendonitis plus golfer's elbow. I will know more in some ten days, because that's when the Gandalf the White lvl100 chiropractor comes back from the vacation, and he should basically inspect every bone, tissue, connection etc. in my arm and neck.
Long story short, they talk the talk, I hope they walk the walk too:) In any case, they do seem more competent than the last ones I've been to.
Nice stuff doolio!! I was about to comment that your figures from imagination don't have much foreshortening, but this newest post has lots of that so I guess I don't have to tell you XD It's a great way to add some depth to your drawings, gotta try and avoid that flat look that a lot of anime style artists get. Maybe next try some upshots and downshots, don't want your ribcages to always be parallel to the viewer!
Cool stuff, keep postiiiiing :D Hoping the new doctor can help you
I don't know actually, I think about it but at the same time I am not sure whether it would be counterproductive... I have yet to grasp the basic "2d" construction, I have a lot of problems with just the naked stick figure stuff in simple poses... I might get lobotomized if I go and foreshorten stuff and all that:D
I guess you're right though. But seriously, even the simplest pose sketch is like a wrestling match for me still:)
Hey, you've got a great SB here, I never commented before because you've got an unique style and criticizing personal style isn't that helpful. What you could improve that would help on that style of yours is your line quality and hatching.
An exercise I like to do when drawing anatomy is to draw without taking my pen/pencil off the tablet/paper, it really helps your line flow and line quality. At first it'll be very hard and come off wrong but do it enough you'll start making single strokes that define what you want to do.
As for the hatching you need to make longer lines and the most important is that the lines follow the volume of the object. Most of the comic book artists use this, check some out!
Haha, but you did comment, some page or two earlier:D
For the hatching and line quality, I now what you're saying:) But the thing is, I don't actually "do hatching" or line quality, I am just sketching to try and get proportions and that stuff. Hatching here and there is just a remnant of muscle memory, so to speak:)
It doesn't show, but I actually did A LOT of hatching and linework, I majored in graphics (and my graphics were 90% duhrer style hatching) and before that I was at the atelier where the emphasis was on hatching and drawing with masses and tones and/or line drawings. We also had an army-like routine when it came to croquis, so we basically were drilled into not lifting pen off the paper and looking at the model 99% of time.
I am not saying this because I want to be like "OH MAN I KNOW HATCHING", because I don't think my hatching is good, it's too rigid for my taste and I personally don't like it, but I just want to say that I know what you're talking about and I know quite a bit about the subject, theoretically and I KNEW practically:D Which comes handy especially when doing graphics, because you do it SLOWLY (you can't hatch quickly when engraving, especially if you want to make something realistic, duhrer or rembrandt-like) so it gets engraved into your brain (heh, engraved:D). That being said, what you say is completely true - except that I disagree about canonizing the long lines, as you can build hatched masses with short cross lines, for example. I do agree to a degree on following the volume, as it helps with emphasizing the shape and depth and you avoid confusing the eye, but at the same time, I am not against variety or breaking the shape - like, for example, Leonardo did with his drawings sometimes.
On the other hand, a lot of "best ever hatchers" like Duhrer or Jiri Anderle pretty much always followed the shape. Then again, on more monotonous surfaces, they often did the short cross hatch thing.
Of course, that doesn't mean anything if you don't practice and apply it. And I'm not applying it:) It's quite the opposite, I hatched on paper, wood, metal, linoleum and stone for like eight years under the "fundamentals and grandmasters police" in a realistic fashion and painted stuff from life in oils with large to small brushes and strokes and stuff... and now I'm like oh god yes, let me try and draw stylized flat stuff that's not painterly and it doesn't have olskool hatching:) And I fail miserably, because my glass is fucking full and in the end I draw something that has like five randomly hatched lines and is dirty because I erase/draw on one layer and don't make another at the top for final linework etc. And if I try to color stuff, I get something awful as well, because I am used to traditional painting with combining strokes in surfaces and going from large to small while squinting for tones etc. so my mind simply rejects vector-like anime qualities, for example. So, basically, I am a sad puppy that's not here nor there stylistically:D Every time I see someone use a shitload of layers or a lasso tool, I'm almost irrationally like omg me wants:)
Ah, that kinda felt good:D
But there's one thing I absolutely want you to know - I VERY MUCH appreciate your feedback and I think you're right. I really do, I am not just saying that. Every post here that focuses constructively on some part of my work is the reason why I have opened this thread in the first place. And I do think you're right. But I just wanted to say that I am not actually hatching or "doing linework", even if it sounds silly - if I have hatching or linework in my sketches, I am doing it. But the thing is I am not going for it, I don't "use hatching", so to speak. For example, when I "do hatching", I never ever use that zig zag lazy stuff but I do it quite a bit here in my sketches, sometimes almost unconsciously, to fill that surface there or something like that. And it pisses me off:) So, the large part of my post is just a bit of me venting, and it certainly isn't directed at you:) You've just triggered it with subject. And, of course, you couldn't have known my sad hatching story:) It's just like I was playing basketball, got fed up with it, moved to a new town and started shyly to train football and someone walked up to me and said "hey, we have a basketball court here, you should check it out" since he saw me doing some weird stuff in training:)
And that's why I want to stress once more - I am very grateful for your comment and I would be most thankful if you would continue to comment whenever you have something to add, correct or advise. This was a great and insightful comment too - because I sometimes don't even notice that I mud up my drawings by adding obligatory shitty hatching.
Also, on the other hand, I am not REALLY fed up with all that stuff, so I might try and hatch something for real in the near future even. It's just that I am pretty unhappy because it affects other type of stuff that I'm trying to do, so I do tend to see it as an unnecessary pest sometimes:) I mean, there is absolutely no chance that I now sit and produce a lassoed/vectored/gradient/tidy sterile linework stuff because my brain would simply interfere and go at least a bit in the other direction. And then I try to go flat for example and end up with - flat hatching for example. Which I do like sometimes (actually, I like it very much as I got really fed up with following the form), but you know what I'm saying:)
That said, the fact that remains, is that I do tend to make shittier lines on tablet. It simply forces me to draw from the hand instead from the shoulder, I don't know why. I really don't, as I draw from the shoulder when drawing traditionally. And I'm trying to do that digitally for months, without success, like I do it somebody else's hand:)
Hey, don't sweat it, as I said it is difficult to crit on style. About the hatching it's just to me that smaller lines makes things more "organic" and longer makes it lean, but that's all up to you and I respect that.
Oh and I had some experience on engraving too, I went to some university that had it, bailed after a year as it was boring, boring"er" because the teacher had all these strict rules and you said about hatching and what not. It felt more of a math class than art class.
Ah yes, academic stuff tend to do that:) I won't say I gained nothing from it, but I gained nothing I would effectively use later on. Doing graphics does teach you SOMETHING, mostly about abstract composition and line language, but 98% of it is learning about techniques and gaining experience in that field. And since I don't plan to use etching or dry point to produce my work, well, the math is clear:)
As for atelier I mentioned, I picked some useful stuff from there, I can't say I didn't. In fact, I picked up the most useful stuff I can think of - a knowledge about discerning and applying fundamentals, a painter's eye and analysis, so to speak. Which helps immensely with being self-taught, as you are less likely to go in the wrong direction or misjudge somebody else's work or advice. But aside from that, I was too lazy back then and anyway, the ol' masta was too olskool:D
I agree with you on that general notice about long and short lines. In fact, I even agree about the general flow around the shape approach being superior to flatter methods. I do think it's richer, more fluid and more artsy (artsy in a good way:) ). It's just that I tend to suffer from onesidedness in my approach, so I do that organic oldschool style even when I don't have to:) And, with grass being greener on the other side, I tend to like the minimal modern renders nowadays:) So I'll often drop some patchy 60 degree parallel lines hatch and make things muddy:) It doesn't mean it's not going to change and cycle with time. I might very well grab pencil and paper and do portraits with graphite or something:)
Ok, an update. I still can't get the anime vibe, I'll start to believe in magic and stuff, as I don't get anime stuff even when I like literally trace over an existing anime illustration, which defies logic (I don't trace but you get my point, maybe I should lol).
I've also tried to produce that characteristic "2.5D 3/4 jaw" from a low angle couple of times, with moderate success.
Also, I've tried to get the (non)flat face in 3/4 vibe (when the face behaves like it's a flat surface with floating elements and cheeks and jaw are rounded and flat at the same time, resulting in ears being close to the eye blahblah). With that I am fairly content.
But the style is killing me, I feel like a five year old trying to drive a truck without the manual.
Great update Doolio. Those poses are looking really great, the studies as well!
About the anime style and the faces, I think you are definitely on the right track, I really dig the elf girl and a lot of the other faces look good as well. As far as I can see, sometimes it's just that parts of the face don't seem at the right place, like some millimeters off, like for example on the sheet with the study of the blue haired girl. If you look at the last face on this sheet, I think that the right eye seems a bit too big. Personally I would have dealt with the face line and cheek differently as well, but here it's difficult since that is also a big matter of personal style (:
Anyway, I think you should just go on doing a lot of studies, it will surely help you to get more of a feeling for the style. When I started out with art in the beginning, I only used to copy manga pictures of my favourite artists. That's why for me it's the other way round and I get into trouble when I try to draw more realistic stuff.
Hey Doolio, I've been following your sketchbook for a while, never had much to say cause your way beyond me but I think your anime stuff is looking really good. Drawing manga style was like a guilty pleasure for me, til I saw your sketchbook and thought whoa! this dude is going for it! manga all the way! total confidence! - since then I draw manga without thinking 'this is not proper drawing, I should study life models and anatomy til I can do it blindfolded first'. You gave me confidence to pursue it more. Thanks for that ^^
Your stuff is really good anyway, the lines are beautiful, the head shapes are great, the hair is always interesting and varied and the ones with the simplified mouths / noses look awesome. Just the eyes that seem a bit off (and only on a couple).
I think it's so interesting to see you working hard to improve your anime style. It's not something you see here on CD too much! Plus the fact that I started to draw horrid anime when I was in middle school, drawing really bad Naruto and Death Note fanart. It's something I worked hard to stop doing and get rid of, so I think it's cool to see you working to improve your anime style.
Anyway, I think your SB is going awesome! You are seriously killing it, I'm always so impressed when I see how many sketches you post with each update. I don't have much else to say, other than I think that you have more skill than you give yourself credit for. Keep it up, but don't forget to take care of yourself too. Good luck, man, I'll be keeping an eye on this thread.
Cyprinus:
Yes, that "style or mistake" thing is really difficult for me. For example, I've been drawing eyes pretty much the same size in the 3/4 view and then I saw that the more stylized anime styles tend to exaggerate the perspective of the eyes quite a bit, so I was like ok, let's try and do that - and look what happened:D
As for the studies, yes, I think that's the obvious solution, though I have some kind of love/hate relationship with studies:) On one side, it comes natural to me, as my background mostly consisted of studies and working from references, but on the other side, I feel as if somehow nothing stays in my brain. Maybe I should focus more specifically in one go, for example, do only sadamoto faces study/apply for like five days or something.
Also, anime to me is a VERY strange and elusive beast. Very. Some things I simply can't deconstruct (are they winging the floating noses or there's a construction behind it, for example) and the fact that I am used to analytic approach and can analyze a lot of styles only makes it worse.
Jyonny:
Wow, thanks man, I appreciate it:D I mean, really, thank you. It means a lot if my approach inspired you to throw away the "anime is simple/stupid/easy" stigma:)
And thank you for liking my work, you are giving me confidence to pursue it too:)
ZombieCh:
Thank you for the compliments:) About the skill perception, I don't know, maybe... I mean, it might be that my passive critical eye is way more developed than my actual skill and then I recognize million bad things in a drawing and I want to kill myself:)
Though, I don't think I'm BAD bad. It's more about the distribution of my "skill points" vs where I'm trying to distribute them:) For example, I think that I have a fairly good eye and I can do studies which have good quickness-accuracy ratio. Also, I think I can analyze stuff well. And I think my anatomy is getting better almost on a weekly basis. But then I see 12yo dude's haruhi suzumiya fan art that has no fundamentals, no dexterity and no construction - and it's simply more anime:) And then I'm like "omg where do I find THAT":D Of course, by "more anime" I am not thinking about some teenage mantra as if somehow "animeness" equals quality, it's just that it's what I love and want to do:) I find "genuine animeness" appealing and want to do it:)
As for the output, thank you, I do try to be consistent, but for example, the difference between the two last updates is like two weeks. Of course, my hand is still pretty non functioning, so that two weeks are like 15 hours of work:( But yeah, when I fix it, I plan on putting updates like that with no more than 1-3 days apart:)
Also, I'm 32, so I want to get to a decent level as soon as possible, for example in two years or so:)
to all:
hahah, yeah, it seems that I'm the only one so far that did a reversed process for drawing anime. The other way around seems to be extremely prevalent in the industry. For example, even on streams and talks, I more often than not hear that the artist xyz started by tracing cowboy bebop or something, but then switched and now is doing something like matte landscapes for halo 5:)
I always liked anime, but never thought of pursuing it professionally (or drawing it out of leisure even) until recently. Strangely enough, I developed a great deal of respect for the anime style as I've got to know art and fundamentals more. The more I know, the more I can respect stylization and flow in anime pieces, or compare them to Mucha or Klimt or Lautrec, or cherish the stylized anatomy as something above the realistic anatomy, as it contains realistic anatomy plus the knowledgeable intervention. And so on.
And while I do think that generally it's a good thing I did it the "other way around", as now I have enough knowledge to analyze stuff and sources, not get caught up in bad tutorials void of fundamentals (which is sadly extremely common in anime tutorials as they're virtually unchecked and the whole community is amateurish), it has its downsides, as my haruhi fan art is better in every way than that twelve year old guy's, but at the same, ten times less haruhi than his:D
Ok guys, I would like you to be "my therapists" for today:)
Today was the first time I picked up the pen, went "why", and put it down. Reason being total disappointment and despair as a reaction to the constant pressure of forced and nonsensical "political correctness" in every pore of every bit of communication, art or interaction.
Now, since everything these days must be disclaimed, to not be perceived entirely wrong and labeled with hundreds of presumptions and non-existing subcontexts (precisely because of what I've mentioned in previous sentence), so shall I do it:) I am perfectly "normal", "good" and reasonable person, who respects and advocates pretty much everything "good and normal" and so on, I won't go into much detail because it's more or less clear what I'm talking about - I am not some nazi guy who's trying not to sound like one and stuff like that:) On the contrary even, I might say. I will use hyperbolic examples (maybe not even that hyperbolic?:( ), for the very reasons I've mentioned.
And yet, I am utterly and completely crushed by overwhelming helplessness and despair caused by forced and constructed PC that I feel genuine worry and maybe even apathy when I pick up the pencil to draw ANYTHING. Because, the way it is now, I won't be surprised (actually, I would be surprised if it doesn't turn out to be like that lol) that the, I don't know, snowy environment concept is labeled offensive and hateful because, for example, people living in tropical areas don't get to see the snow. I am not kidding:)
And it would be okay if it was some vocal minority (tropical people feelings front, or something like that?:) ), but sadly, that's not the case. It's the objectively omnipresent vibe, just waiting to be sprung into life on each and every non-existing issue in art, statement, conversation etc.
What's even worse, is that it's not only about inclusiveness of "moot agendas", it's even about not including stuff. In somebody's creative expression. I mean, really? Really?? So if I'm to make a comic featuring bunnies, I would surely be mob-lynched for not featuring whales, as they are clearly more endangered and deserve the spot in every self conscious comic featuring wildlife. And the "holy overwhelming vibe" would surely remain deaf to my responses about how I simply wanted to make a comic about bunnies because I like bunnies and how there aren't any whales in forests, thus I haven't featured them and also how it's not a political statement, but simply a webcomic about bunnies.
And it doesn't even stop there. It goes a step further. Even if you somehow included anything (even if it's your creation, just to remind you) and even put it in the "right" context, you are sure to fail. Because subcontexts. So, even if you create, let's say, a war story, with a clear anti-war message, you would probably be labeled as a sick fuck who gets turned on by war and is looking for a reason to depict it.
I don't have many facebook friends, for today's standards. I have like 200 people or so. Yet again, almost every post I see has that vitriolic pressure. I try to scroll through non-art content, but you can't "unsee" things. Also, even art is not a "safe zone", as virtually EVERYTHING is subject to painful spinning, adding non-existing subcontexts, apples and oranges, forced corectness etc.
Someone linked a compilation of world cup countries presented as anime girls. Of course, the artist (some chinese guy) portrayed bunch of stereotypes and memes - as one should when one is making that kind of thing - so Switzerland had a cheese hat and an swiss army knife and England was in medieval armor. And of course, it was instantly labeled as offensive, sexist and, wait for it, RACIST. And even the ones who didn't deemed it as such wrote something along the lines of venomous statements like "not everyone in Spain is a matador, you know". Really? Is it really true that not everyone there is a matador? Wow.
And I must again stress the point that those weren't like ten comments out of 200, it was the other way around. There were like ten comments like "I like Russia the most" or "Germany's legs are too long".
Now, my arm is starting to burn badly, so I won't mention more examples, but it's unbelievable. I could now go on facebook or even google random letters and I am sure to find dozens of examples. From criticizing video games and illustrations, to conversations and books, movies, statements, t-shirts, toys, tv series etc. and NONE of those would be a justified attack. It's sickening. At least for me, the cup is simply filled, I don't know what to do... Escape in some self imposed autism, eat air and draw stuff secretly? Joke around only with closest friends? Become a construction engineer and socialize with concrete and metal?:)
I mean, I'm okay with criticism, I'm even okay with falsely constructed criticism about non-existant issues within some work - when there is other side of things to be heard. But there isn't. It's a witch hunt and global mobbing without any possible counter balance. That's not critique.
When it comes to these things, offence is in the eye of the offended. Which is okay. If I was robbed and beaten by some burglars in blue, I would be uneasy at the blue man group gig. But when I start to seek the cancellation of said gig for that reason, that's where the line should be drawn. But that's NEVER done that way.
Blah, my hand is completely stiff lol, but I'll finish with the left one:D So, did you ever feel this way? Do you think about these things? How you cope with them?
I have felt pressure like this, though not with the lens of PCness. The way I see it, I believe that you can only be accountable to yourself for making art you want to, and even then you should get in the way of the process as little as possible. The moment you start bringing anybody else's opinion onboard, that is when you start to dull down the alacrity of what your own vision is. If you wish to continue, you MUST not give a shit about what others may or may not, do or do not say. I find staying off social media where that shit goes down is best, or at least restrict it, or don't get pulled in.
besides most people are so uninformed about most things that you can safely discount much of the value of their input anyway, therefore who gives a shit what bigoted or pc views they harbour. It matters not a bit. Just do what you do man.
