Rotohail's "Reclusive" SketchBook
I was going to comment re the landscape piece, but Fed gave some awesome crit. I think the only thing I have to add is that the character's placement (or rather, size) feels a bit awkward - he's kinda just, *there*. Like Fed mentioned, sizing him up would really help just pull things together a bit more.

Loving the Sailor Moon redraw too. The more gritter, less saturated style is an interesting take for it. I like the way you handled the hair. My only crit on it would be to watch out for that hitchhikers thumb ;)
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haha damn man that Sailor moon got beat the shit out of her xD

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(05-20-2020, 07:55 AM)Pubic Enemy Wrote: Not bad. It's like grimdark Sailor Moon. My personal preference is for the original palette, but I'm a sucker for the highly saturated anime of previous decades, painfully drawn and painted on cels (no animators were harmed in the making of this film).

Good job with the semi-realistic anime style though. It's hard to pull off.
Ha ha ha. Any examples of those animes you mention?
I think I still don't grasp enough to call it a style lol, but I would like to get it somewhere along a more realistic lines if I could, then again abstraction is kind of the point sometimes so, I'm torn.

(05-20-2020, 08:37 AM)chubby_cat Wrote: I was going to comment re the landscape piece, but Fed gave some awesome crit. I think the only thing I have to add is that the character's placement (or rather, size) feels a bit awkward - he's kinda just, *there*. Like Fed mentioned, sizing him up would really help just pull things together a bit more.

Loving the Sailor Moon redraw too. The more gritter, less saturated style is an interesting take for it. I like the way you handled the hair. My only crit on it would be to watch out for that hitchhikers thumb ;)

Noted. Thanks! Alright, I think I saw what you mention about the thumb, not sure if it will look better now.

(05-20-2020, 09:17 AM)Jeso Wrote: haha damn man that Sailor moon got beat the shit out of her xD

Ha ha, yeah I really wanted to bridge Sailormoon with DBZ or more shonen gritty stuff! I played it somewhat mildly tho.

Leaving the challenge a bit more cleaner, a figure study that I should push further in some areas but invested more time than I wanted to in it (~6h), another landscape on the lines of the last ones which I'm probably gonna abandon since I'm not liking again what I have so far (not very interesting to look at, no story). And started out to try to build guns in perspective, lukewarm with results but I'm gonna try and do a bunch of these, figure out how to push the forms and make more complex details, gotta say doing things like a fully correctly drawn picatinny rail, just makes me want to gouge my eyes out, so I'm just bullshitting them lol (sighs..).








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The guy sitting on the floor there some strange coloration on is left arm could you share the reference for comparaison?

I did an attempt at a draw over but it might be to much for my current skillset.I specially tried to use the mixbrush on it belly and i tone done abit of that wet light and added more of that ground reflecting in the shadow side a good deal of is cast shadow doesn't affect the bounce light.


You can still be really proud of this one it as alot of subtility in the form.


Attached Files Image(s)



My Sketchbook

Perfection is unmeasurable therefor it impossible to reach it.
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(05-25-2020, 04:10 AM)darktiste Wrote: The guy sitting on the floor there some strange coloration on is left arm could you share the reference for comparaison?

I did an attempt at a draw over but it might be to much for my current skillset.I specially tried to use the mixbrush on it belly and i tone done abit of that wet light and added more of that ground reflecting in the shadow side a good deal of is cast shadow doesn't affect the bounce light.

You can still be really proud of this one it as alot of subtility in the form.

Thanks man, here's the original:


Studies don't make much for my confidence ha ha, most of the time I either feel I fail either by not making them my own or achieving the accuracy I set myself to. I just do them to fill in between other stuff (mostly when I get the jitters lol).
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Having a good amount of challenge in a piece force into you to have some break through sometime even if it can be hard on the moral.Of course knowing when your chewing to much is also important not to burn out.A nice thing also to improve is taking a piece that you feel is somewhat higher that your current skillset and trying to own it. It would be a trap to try to study thing you ''already plateau at'' that of course if your aware that you are in a plateau.Like you said you can try to make it your own if stylisation is something you wanna push.You can even try to completely reinvent the light scenerio the color of the background or even change is ethnicity or even change the sex of the character to be something else and if you wanna get your imagination out of is bag you could even transform him into a sex robot there no limit to how far you can try to make it your own.Those are some example of how i think it possible to create something new out of a reference.Whatever fundamental you want to own you can try to do it by using a reference as a ''kind of safety net'' since some of the anwers are already answered by the reference.

One late observation on the last piece is it me or is head is slightly smaller than the reference it intentional or not?

My Sketchbook

Perfection is unmeasurable therefor it impossible to reach it.
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(05-24-2020, 10:00 PM)Rotohail Wrote: Ha ha ha. Any examples of those animes you mention?
I think I still don't grasp enough to call it a style lol, but I would like to get it somewhere along a more realistic lines if I could, then again abstraction is kind of the point sometimes so, I'm torn.
Practically any anime show or OVA from before the widespread adoption of digital ink and paint around the late 90s/early 2000s (not sure of the exact time period), like Dragon Half, Bastard!!, Vampire Princess Miyu, and so on (I don't recommend actually watching the first two unless your schlock tolerance is as high as mine). I'm not any sort of traditional purist, it's just that digitally animated anime soon became characterized by very pale and low-contrast color choices. Not sure why.

You probably just need to follow what you think is prettiest with regards to the abstraction question, unless you have some project where going full Toriyama would be more appropriate.

I actually quite like the landscape painting you posted. The circular landforms give it a nice fantastical quality. The only place where I feel like it could be given more of a sense of story is in those curved protrusions coming out of the ground; it's hard to tell if they're architectural ruins, huge animal fossils, or something else, which could be fixed by either changing the arrangement or adding more details. Also, feel free to bullshit those picatinny rails; I doubt that anyone will notice if they're out of perspective or whatever, haha. As long as they're in the right place you won't get any comments from gun fanatics. You're not doing a technical illustration here.
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That thumb be looking good!
Also really digging the figure painting study. Keep up with the studies, even though you sometimes feel discouraged by them. They always pay off in the end :)
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that painting study is really awesome ! Cant believe it only took you 6 hrs. looks like a 20 hr painting.

Nice guns too! : D

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Everything here is amazing. Do you post anywhere else?

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Darktiste
Hmm, is not exactly that either, is more stubbornness at this point on my part. I don't even want to go the fine arts route, I should just be deconstructing, making studies my own thing, not just copying for the sake of it. But I keep trying then failing. Maybe I just like to bang my head against made up walls.
I've been trying to do what you suggest, if I got your drift, with the last landscapes? I use a reference then just tweak things around or add stuff, not so much go for copying, but filter it first through what I want and understand about it. I like this more honestly (still challenging but more because I don't take my time to think things through, need to fix that about me).
Anyways, thanks again man.

Pubic Enemy
Ooh! I have actually read Bastard! manga back when I was a teenager, saw the show mostly clips but it did not cover much, sadly the manga was never finished I believe? Anyways loved it. One of my favorites. Very power tripping ha ha, but that's the kinda I want at times. Hmm, I did not notice that honestly, to me new animes tend to have become more colorful or less gritty (I haven't checked in many years tho) but old 80s-90s stuff felt that way to me. I honestly don't know at all.

Ha ha ha, wait what? What did Toriyama do? I have an issue that what I fancy is very seasonal, I have a broad range of stuff I like and tend to go pick at anything I want at the time. It's kind of chaotic. Mostly my issue is that I need to stop bullshiting so much and put some thought into things, that's my biggest flaw at the moment (or the one I want to fix the earliest).

I thought making it stone remains or something but bones would had worked also. I mostly did not know where to drive it and the size of things, the viewpoint or POIs were becoming boring to me so I thought better start it over or got for another thing. Ha, the gun details like those mostly I wish I could do the quickly, I can spent like half an hour or more doing the rail fine but that feels like a waste since it really doesn't tells anything much about the gun overall. I think this would be a good example where I would do some 3D asset (since it's a very repetitive form) and just paste it there. I'll have to think on trying just that.

cubby_cat & Jeso
Thank you both! Mostly I need to fix my priorities with my studies, how do I approach them.

Danny
Thanks! I post on a smaller thread on a spanish forum since I started there years ago, I've tried other places at times like /ic/ or reddit, and just recently discord but no social media yet if that's what you were referring to. Gotta decide soon to start one but I seem to keep putting it aside.


Leaving a few things for these days. I few sketches I want to work out/fix:



some imaginative warmup I was doing today for comfort zone


another landscape attempt, which I would like to work more now, I kinda like the mood on this one


landscape that turned out so so, took the reference too literal, very few changes.


 
I also have some guns started but still want to work them out some more. Overall still playing too much Stalker.
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Yeah, Bastard!! is great. The strange thing about new animes is that they appear to be more colorful but the actual saturation level is a lot lower. It's like pale pastel hell. I watched the Bastard!! OVA recently and, while dark and gritty, the backgrounds and cel-shading are actually very richly colored, much more so than I've seen in any recent anime clips. We are getting into pointless grumbling now though.

Regarding that Toriyama comment, I was just referring to making things more abstract; you know, massive spikes for hair and completely abstracted facial features. Although, I guess the most extreme example of that would actually be Lucky Star.

Regarding the new stuff: I like the shadows, gesture, and curvilinear perspective in dozoff.png; it has a nice lazy feeling to it. Also, what's up with the clawed feet on that sword-girl? Is she a ThunderCat?

Also, there's no such thing as playing too much STALKER. The last landscape study looks dreary enough to be an environment from one of the games.
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Pubic Enemy
Well now I really am curious! Okay so Bastard!! OVA compared against what new moive for example? Because it sounds more a value thing when you mentioned pastels. I don't think is pointless! This is the kind of stuff you might want to notice for your own projects ha ha, and I'm really trying to learn color so you really sparked my interest. So thank you for bringing it up!

Oh! Alright. Honestly I would like to do that myself more but I tend to always back off, do the meek thing. My gut keeps telling me I should simplify, abstract and look for the line and shape design like those. But I'm holding myself back, darn it. Need to build the courage to throw everything out the window.

Ha! Thanks! I ended up pursuing that one further! So I'm glad is working for you, although it's getting now to the point I lose myself on where I want to bring it so I'm gonna move onto the others and guns. I don't know ThunderCats (mostly heard about them at times, but haven't checked, is it good?) but I did have in the back of my head some character I'm not sure where it came from but had that vibe, if I recall well enough. I mostly wanted a gladiator with beast-like features, I need to rework it further but is probably gonna be next after some guns.

Ha ha ha, words to live by! Honestly tho it's getting into too much procrastination at this point and that ain't good. I keep trying to clock myself so I don't spiral into it but yeah, it's pull is too strong lol. I'm having just too much fun going with ironman runs and dying like a moron ha ha ha. It's just such a good mixture of features darn it. No modern games does anything like it. The sense of danger of going out but also the need to do so. Maybe don't starve comes close to it but not the same immersion stalker has or atmosphere, even when I also love the heck out of that one. I guess probably battle royales have the same idea behind it but without the atmosphere and being pvp matches not rpg survival make them not as great to my eyes. Oh well, sorry of the game off-topic ha ha.

Btw I keep waiting for you to update your SB, I owe you a ton of feedback ha ha.

Leaving an update on one of the previous sketches, tried for funs a line-effect clip has for the lines I had, might have overdone it but I find the funky feel fresh lol (might wear out soon). I wish I could think on how to light things in more interesting ways but is outside my expertise for the time being, maybe I just should fool around with lighting the same drawings in different ways for a while. Hmm...


Edit: Punched the shadows more as suggest by Pubic Enemy. Many thanks! Looks much better.
Edit2: Weird, trying to delete the old attachment but it persist. Hmm...




Attached Files Image(s)


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Really like where this drawing is going man! Would love to see more shit floating a round, specially in between the girl and the camera.

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If you want to get good at lighting simplify you shape and start from there to apply different lighting scenario being aware of the object around the subject it help extract an idea of the shape that might be interesting to use as cast shadow on your other form a cast shadow is a great tool to create area of contrast and interest.A advance technique if you have access to 3d softwarre is to download a simply mannequin an try to put the model in the lightroom and see what come out as interesting playing with 1 to 3 different light source changing the direction and the intensity of the light source.

My Sketchbook

Perfection is unmeasurable therefor it impossible to reach it.
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(06-01-2020, 05:09 PM)Rotohail Wrote: Btw I keep waiting for you to update your SB, I owe you a ton of feedback ha ha.

Don't worry about it man. I don't care much if I don't get any replies; it merely serves as motivation to make something that will actually provoke a response, haha.

I'm not sure if you'd call ThunderCats "good" but it did have a corny 80s cartoon with a great theme song.

Regarding the anime thing. Value is definitely part of it; there's a trend toward high value and low saturation in newer vs older anime shows. Here are some screencaps from Bastard!! and a recent show of similar genre called Goblin Slayer (I think it's similar, I haven't watched it). It's somewhat unfair to compare Bastard!! to anything since it's a very detailed OVA that probably took years to make, but it does show a general trend. You be the judge:

Bastard!!:
https://sindarfrom.files.wordpress.com/2...-pic-8.jpg
https://sindarfrom.files.wordpress.com/2...-pic-5.jpg
https://fantasyanime.com/anime/images/ba...shot08.jpg
https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5B...@._V1_.jpg

Goblin Slayer:
https://images.fancaps.net/images/anime/...t_0211.jpg
https://images.fancaps.net/images/anime/...t_0054.jpg
https://images.fancaps.net/images/anime/...t_0481.jpg
https://img1.ak.crunchyroll.com/i/spire3...1_full.jpg

The updated sketch is looking very nice; it has a cool old-fashioned sci-fi vibe to it. I actually quite like the lighting set-up; but if it's not feeling interesting to you, the problem may not be with the lighting scenario itself but with the colors used, and how big of a value difference there is between the light and shadow areas. For example, the scene would feel very different if there were no ambient light and the shadowed areas were close to pure black.
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Maybe a bit of a generic idea here but if you do more tests on that one a night scene could look cool with all those green screens left on.
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Jeso
Agreed! I was thinking just that, overlapping the legs or more towards the center of the view. Thanks!


Darktiste
The first bit is what I'm doing already, sometimes poorly, but yeah is more about getting good at mood lighting what I meant. Solution is to study movies. My list just keeps growing. The 3D thing I'm thinking on doing that soon enough, I've been practicing 3D on a off over the years just for that but I keep being stubborn.


Pubic Enemy
Oh! but that's my way of doing it ha ha, I try to give feedback back to those that give it to me, gotta balance the scales! What's fair is fair. Provoke a response? Now that's the artist in you talking ha.

Oh, comparing those I do get the feeling goblin seems like everything is a bit washed out, like if there was fog or using overexposed or indoors white lights? Escapes me and yeah bastard is more saturated and has more contrast without blowing up the lighter values. This feels more like a gamma thing lol. Not that I understand any of it. I do like more Bastard!! looks between those two. I'm gonna have to start watching some again and take notes ha ha.

That's a good point! Maybe making the shadows darker. It's also about the mood and the shadow shapes, like how to direct the view, how to make it have a rhythm or be interesting. Kinda like doing inked shadows. Being graphic. I don't get yet all that. So yeah! I need to try that, pure black shadows.


(06-02-2020, 02:19 PM)Mochiman Wrote: Maybe a bit of a generic idea here but if you do more tests on that one a night scene could look cool with all those green screens left on.

Generic is fine! I have to try that one out so yeah! Probably on a different one, but yes, dark room only light by screens sounds good to me.


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Interlude, still making weapons but did this as warm up. So so in certain areas, would like to fix the forms (legs and hands mainly), I think the lighting works (kinda standard scheme, very dark souls.. the fire fades... ha ha).

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In my opinion you should just start posting on some social media like instagram instead.
People here are giving you advice and critiques on everything, which isn't productive at this point. Not to mention your skill level is way way higher than most people active on this site already.
I know this sounds rude but most people here are stagnating and not reaching a pro level because of the mindset everybody here has adapted.
Obviously if you're already a pro (earning money from your art), none of this matters.

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Well the issue isn't so much that he doesn't need a community to keep growing it as more to do with the level he is at.I think he should start to gears himself more toward participating in challenge and use those to get exposure and to also inform him on what weakness he should be working on.Art station is nice but it not a constructive community same as instagram you rarely get comment that go past the waw that look great or can you do this for me for free.But you sometime get someone to notice you and that can be nice if your already at a employable level.The trap when you stop posting in forum like this one is you are cutting yourself from feed back i find it kind stupid that one can think he cannot learn from someone else error.You can actually stagnate doing only client work if you don't practice on the side.The problem for ROTO is to find people who still have thing to teach him and those people generally are employed so at one point you reach the point that you are only trying to break away from the pack who aren't interest in working professional but if your doing this as an hobby your not necessarly interest in exposure if what drive you is improvement and personal project.

My Sketchbook

Perfection is unmeasurable therefor it impossible to reach it.
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