Crimson Daggers — Art forum

OH !!!! Dude!!! XD that Bear dude is insanely hot, looks like something you can get paid for a game character for it.
O_0 And that detail wow :D

Thanks so much everyone! I'm really glad you guys like him =))) Just gotta wrap him up now, haha.
Really unproductive week for me but I still feel like I learned a good bit. Tried another fast study before bed and the actual process was a bit better. Practiced some composition after painting myself into a corner with the lich. More initiate planning needs to be done from now on. Also a longer study, was a lot of fun :)

Nice studies and stuff!!! I like that you're varying the size of the swamp beast int hose thumbs. I was reading a cool post by jake wyatt about how he starts illustrations with really rough, simple layouts with a quick perspective grid, trying to find the best possible viewpoint, maybe give that kind of quick sketch method a try and then try to build the scene and background to fit? could be worth a shot XD

hope there's a more productive week on the horizon! (I know I need to do one too)

it really shows when somebody loves doing something ;3 cool studies- especially te first one, hehe

and nice compostitions!
i would choose the third from the first row and/or the first from the second row.

Hey guys! I obviously disappeared again and before I knew it, it's been almost 7 months? Don't worry I don't have a backlog of 7 months of stuff to post. Mostly because I kept my bad habit of deleting stuff I am indifferent towards(which is a lot of it).

Since I've been gone I've done a lot of imagination work which never got finished(boo) and haven't actually studied much. I grew a fear of studying at one point because I realized most of what I've done so far has been studies and done for the wrong reasons. I wasn't actually focused on what I was studying a majority of the time and was doing them just because "you study to get better". Almost never applying anything and almost always getting stuck in the human copy machine mode. I think most of what I learned from all of that was through pure osmosis, which is just stupid. I wasted a lot of time because of this and could be much further along if I had handled things "better". I'm not gonna beat myself up over it though, I think we all have periods where we look back and think "fuck, that was stupid of me"

Since then I stepped away from art for awhile to rethink things and then came back to it only to rethink about what direction I wanted to go in with it. Or maybe think about it for the first time, I'm not really sure. A big part of why I was so unhappy with my work I realized is that I was trying to paint realistically(admittedly very poorly!) which isn't what really appeals to me visually at all. I enjoy styled stuff as well as painterly things much more than the realism approach as those things tend to be much more interesting in concept or appeal. I decided that was a direction I wanted to move in and then had the realization that I have no clue how to translate things in a non literal way and grew frustrated over that as well. It felt like I was beating my head against a brick wall for a good long while before I had the epiphany that it is largely a judgement based way of working as apposed to finding the "correct" answer. Then I realized that is a lot of what art is in general. We're trying to make things not record them. The information we pull from shouldn't be anything but a reinforcement, not the core of the concept. Which is why I tend to dislike realism as a whole, as it usually turns out to just be information and little to no interesting ideas or concepts. Often purely for the sake of bravado.

A lot of this is kind of common sense that I probably could have parroted a year ago or two ago if you asked me to, but didn't really come to fully understand until (relatively) recently.

ANYWAYS, I'm starting to write a novel here, so I'm gonna stop myself. I hope to pick up studying again with more intent this time around. Focusing less on pumping them out for the sake of doing them. Here is some recent stuff, some of it is pretty rough but whatever, I wanna do this now so I don't put it off. I'm gonna go through some sketchbooks later and try to catch up with everyone!

Your post...
THIS IS EXACTLY. HOW. I FEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEL O_O

Especially the 2nd paragraph and the one about realism.
I tend to find myself taking whole days off just to think about direction and look at what got me into pursuing art in the first place.

Oh far out, where are my manners? Welcome back, welcome back!!

Tbh, I think taking a break and just experimenting and getting away from the... study routine...
is one of the best things you can do. I'm very happy for you! :D

I saw some of your work on deviantART this morning and really loved what I saw - after having read your post, it all makes sense now! You've taken the time needed to readjust and figure out what's important - which is invaluable!!

Congrats man, killer update and glad to have you back-!

p.s. don't go and ninja off again >___> haha

Welcome back, really liking the new direction, you can really feel the enjoyment youre getting from doing things you like instead of just studying for studyings sake. Keep pushing and im looking forward to seeing more of the direction youre going in :).

Thanks for the warm welcomes!

smrrfette- I'm glad to hear someone liked those, smrrfette! Always glad to have more direction aswell. Now comes the hard part =) I'll try not to disappear again and I hope you find more direction as well!

Jonhop- Thanks, Jon! I'm still totally clueless as to what I'm doing and not to far off from where I was but I'm certainly enjoying myself more.

Wasn't able to focus very well on anything today and ended up jumping around throughout the day, not making any progress anywhere. Not gonna bother updating any of the stuff I posted since not much has changed across the board. So here is a morning study I fudged up on the colors with and some rocks and water for that above piece. Tried to apply it best I could but like I said I just wasn't to great today. Also I forgot to post Gerold, he likes to watch birds. Gonna give it extra tomorrow!

Nice to have you back dude! Looking forward to the new stuff you post. Gerold for president 2016. This is an odd crit but I feel like 3 or 1 bird(s) would be funnier than 2. 2 is not a funny number of things.

Thanks, sam! Totally right there, 2 is a very awkward number to stop on. I'll have to fix that and keep it in mind for future! <3

Calling the gnoll designs finished despite the anatomy being poor here and there. Also fiddled with the lich to try and get him to read better. Been starting my day with a hour long life study and man it gets my brain going better than anything I've tried so far. Can never quite be happy with the color of the eye sockets though, haha.

wooo typhlosion!! Cool stuff dude, love how varied those dogs are while still seeming like they're from the same culture

Don't have much to show right now. I realized I've been really thoughtless with my drawing lately so I've been practicing in pen for the past few days. Got inspired to finally try out my ink brush because of Imskeptical's recent update. HOLY SHIT they are fun, would recommend. Spoons are surprisingly good for figuring out metal reflections.

And then I got sick for like two weeks! dafuck


Trying to get back to it then : (
I don't remember doing that pin-up monster dude lol

hehehheeh i like the twisty tree, very nice very nice life paintings too, i hope you don't get sick anymore :/

Quote:I"M BACK!

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the sp has uncanny valley effect, not quite me. Ah well, that's what I get for not paying attention lol

I can see some good improvement man, keep at it.

Looking through the pages I see a lot of improvement; just keep doing what you're doing and you'll be where you want to be. Main crit from what I see in your imaginative work is don't be afraid to push your values more. You're not going dark enough in the shadow areas in some places, but that darkness (contrast) is what really sells the brightness of the light.

Keep at it!

Time to come back again! Come baaaaack!

post 185 totally resonates with me.

i'm in love with those tree studys! damn!

great stuff here.

Where'd you go man???