Author Topic: WIP Me into Finishing This Art  (Read 12061 times)

tzelly

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Re: WIP Me into Finishing This Art
« Reply #45 on: April 02, 2021, 03:19:56 PM »
I've never thought of combining the two, my thought was it'd look weird because one was opaque while the other was transparent! I did use a purple to darken some gouache for a still life a while ago, though, and it worked quite well! But I haven't used it for any other purpose. Gouache is a medium which I see a lot of good, cute paintings of, especially ones of nature, animals, and the like. Unfortunately I don't have the technical skill to pull those off, but they're very inspirational to look at. If you have any tips for it, you should tell me!

(I'm totally open to critique haha, especially if it's on technique or composition because my education in art has been utterly lacking in those respects.)

Right you are! gouache IS a more opaque water color, you can even water down gouache to be more like water color. Mix media is something I have a lot of fun doing. I once did a gouache on an acrylic background on wood. its just getting creative and understanding the individual mediums and lots of experimentation.

the main critique (and its not a big one) is that the background and the trees in the mid ground seem to blend together, a way around that is make the background a slightly different color or saturation of color. depending on the mood your going with, bright and happy could use a bit of yellow sun beams. or if more mysterious maybe a fog that is behind the mid ground trees. if you have a digital art program, you can try playing around with different options then painting it on the original.

I don't want to bring discussion of the bunny comic into this thread, but it's basically just seeing how (in my opinion) terribly a story of a similar premise could be handled that got me doubting myself REALLY hard. My idea was more about the environment, though. I'll still finish it because, like you said, I need to "get it out of my system" and maybe I'll share it with some people I know just to get feedback :P

From the whole debacle with LP, the uproar is not entirely the subject matter, it was how Minna handled the situation and how it was disrespectful of the readers comfort/beliefs if they differ from Minna. I would say don't let this discourage you from writing your story. Im also writing a story (comic/game) that will hit some controversial topics, and I'm taking this event as an example of how not to handle any future criticism. So long as your not insensitive to your reader and are open to other point of views, you will do fine. 
« Last Edit: April 02, 2021, 03:24:40 PM by tzelly »

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Re: WIP Me into Finishing This Art
« Reply #46 on: April 02, 2021, 03:43:38 PM »
From the whole debacle with LP, the uproar is not entirely the subject matter, it was how Minna handled the situation and how it was disrespectful of the readers comfort/beliefs if they differ from Minna. I would say don't let this discourage you from writing your story. Im also writing a story (comic/game) that will hit some controversial topics, and I'm taking this event as an example of how not to handle any future criticism. So long as your not insensitive to your reader and are open to other point of views, you will do fine.

Yes, all of this. Besides, "a story with animal protagonists about an issue the world is facing at the moment because of capitalism" arguably applies to a ton of comics, animation, etc - Ghibli movies come to mind, for instance. It's not that unusual of a topic and people love to see it when it's handled well.

catbirds

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Re: WIP Me into Finishing This Art
« Reply #47 on: April 02, 2021, 04:24:11 PM »
Yes, all of this. Besides, "a story with animal protagonists about an issue the world is facing at the moment because of capitalism" arguably applies to a ton of comics, animation, etc - Ghibli movies come to mind, for instance. It's not that unusual of a topic and people love to see it when it's handled well.

Oh, yep, I was actually inspired by Pom Poko when I started planning it. Other Ghibli movies had human protagonists, but my mind tends to wander when I draw my human OCs so I avoided being too inspired by those.

the main critique (and its not a big one) is that the background and the trees in the mid ground seem to blend together, a way around that is make the background a slightly different color or saturation of color. depending on the mood your going with, bright and happy could use a bit of yellow sun beams. or if more mysterious maybe a fog that is behind the mid ground trees. if you have a digital art program, you can try playing around with different options then painting it on the original. 

Sure! I'll try that, though again, my ability to handle gouache isn't great! If using watercolour with it helps me achieve this effect, then I'll have to combine them! I haven't been too ambitious with experimenting, but it's never too late to start. Also I do have a digital art program and I think many other traditional artists have started using digital art to plan colours out. It's good to see technology complementing traditional art :)

From the whole debacle with LP, the uproar is not entirely the subject matter, it was how Minna handled the situation and how it was disrespectful of the readers comfort/beliefs if they differ from Minna. I would say don't let this discourage you from writing your story. Im also writing a story (comic/game) that will hit some controversial topics, and I'm taking this event as an example of how not to handle any future criticism. So long as your not insensitive to your reader and are open to other point of views, you will do fine. 

Yeah, that's very true. I guess this whole situation is just very psychologically available to me at the moment. Maybe when things calm down, it'll be easier for me to write. But you're right, this was pretty educational for how not to handle criticism! At least we've learned something.

Best of luck with your comic/game (or both at the same time? Both is good) :)

tzelly

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Re: WIP Me into Finishing This Art
« Reply #48 on: April 02, 2021, 04:30:09 PM »
Best of luck with your comic/game (or both at the same time? Both is good) :)

Thanks my dude, good luck to you too with your comic!   :)

Róisín

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Re: WIP Me into Finishing This Art
« Reply #49 on: April 02, 2021, 11:46:12 PM »
Catbirds, I would be interested, if you like?
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Opaque

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Re: WIP Me into Finishing This Art
« Reply #50 on: April 03, 2021, 03:36:47 PM »
Tzelly,  it's great to learn from other people's actions. I'm really glad that this whole LP thing didn't turn you away from controversial topics. Those kind of topics are really interesting to read. You'll definitely have some good luck on your story.

catbirds

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Re: WIP Me into Finishing This Art
« Reply #51 on: April 03, 2021, 11:10:27 PM »
Catbirds, I would be interested, if you like?

Ah, thank you! If there isn't any problem with sharing it in this forum's general art thread, I would!
Spoiler: something about forum terms and conditions • show

I mean, if I recall correctly, the only caveat is that we can't advertise anything art-related on this forum for profit (except commissions). This is just a story that I'm writing for fun, after all.

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Re: WIP Me into Finishing This Art
« Reply #52 on: April 04, 2021, 08:10:25 AM »
Catbirds, sharing on the Forum art museum is absolutely fine!
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wavewright62

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Re: WIP Me into Finishing This Art
« Reply #53 on: April 06, 2021, 03:01:45 AM »
Wave - haha, oil pastels are pretty difficult, aren't they? You should try a digital redo, though! Or even redo it from scratch on paper. And then show us because I'm curious as to what the context of their dancing is! Sometimes, starting over helps somehow :>?

You are so right, starting over sometimes helps.   The kick was the serendipity of having a prompt falling right in my lap. The context was the story I linked, but you can see the redone version on the Chapter Break thread, along with an excerpt of that specific part of the story.  I dug up the oil pastel for reference and man, it was hideous - I'm so much happier with it now.
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Songbird

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Re: WIP Me into Finishing This Art
« Reply #54 on: April 12, 2021, 08:35:24 PM »
Oh man this thread slipped from the new posts list way too fast. I still don't have any contributions to make—my secret for no stalled WIPs: declare them done when sick of them!—but that won't keep me from poking it alive.

@Sevseres @catbirds You make me sound as someone way cooler than I really am. :'D Thanks for the nice words, it's wonderful to hear I managed to help someone!

I feel kind of out of place replying here so much without actually posting (incomplete) art. Here you go

Spoiler: art • show



It feels pretty cursed (in the internet sense) for me to say this was meant to be the first chapter cover for a comic with animal protagonists about an issue the world is facing at the moment because of capitalism (because of That Comic), but I thought of this a while ago and I've been fiddling around with scenery for it for ages. My plan's to start drawing once the semester ends, but again, Feels Pretty CursedTM so I'm pretty uneasy about starting at all. Anyway, this was a test page to see if I should use watercolour or try using gouache, which I only started using recently. I'll probably just write this off as concept art and move on because I ended up not being too fond of the composition anyway.


I love this! I'm not to be fully trusted when it comes to colors and works with more evident brushwork because I just love those, but I don't mind at all it's incomplete. I even like the contrasting negative space of the areas that aren't painted yet, all while being curious to see where you're going with it.

About the project, if it helps, experienced big name authors out there often say that ideas are cheap. Storytelling is all about execution; "original" ideas make for an interesting hook but that's all. They're unable to carry a story on their own. Also, from the creator POV not only it'd be exhausting to try to avoid every single idea combination that popped up elsewhere but it's also unfair to give up something you've been holding close to your heart for a while.


Mirasol That's cute! Since it's lightly sketched erasing parts that are keeping you from proceeding to redraw them shouldn't leave marks... hopefully.
I mean, there's this art rule out there about not using erasers to build confidence or something but I feel a line should be draw (pun intended!) when not using ones makes you drop a drawing. Getting completely stuck is worse than backtracking once imho.



By the way, I think wavewright62 is officially the first one in this thread to successfully see a paused WIP to completion? Congratulations!  :hat: :sparkle:
« Last Edit: April 12, 2021, 08:43:38 PM by Songbird »

catbirds

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Re: WIP Me into Finishing This Art
« Reply #55 on: April 17, 2021, 03:47:22 AM »
Oh man this thread slipped from the new posts list way too fast. I still don't have any contributions to make—my secret for no stalled WIPs: declare them done when sick of them!—but that won't keep me from poking it alive.
...
By the way, I think wavewright62 is officially the first one in this thread to successfully see a paused WIP to completion? Congratulations!  :hat: :sparkle:

This mysterious force always works in reverse for me - I feel peer pressured into finishing my WIPs now :D But whatever works! I wish you the best with your own heap of WIPs.

Thank you again for the advice, it's about time I stopped stalling it, to be honest. The semester's almost over! Which means I am compelled to draw by some mysterious force! Based on your advice, I hope my.. urgh.... writing skills (?) hold up!

As for the drawing itself, I'm struggling to figure out where to stop working on the background so it doesn't overwhelm the subjects of the drawing (in the white spots). Ah, well. If it looks nice all brushy, then it looks nice.

And congrats, Wave, for not giving up on your :sparkle: WIP :sparkle: ! That was a cool completed piece :)

MollyVampiric

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Re: WIP Me into Finishing This Art
« Reply #56 on: April 17, 2021, 08:25:09 PM »
I'm rather proud of the hair and most of the body, but how the heck do you do lighting, lips, noses, etc?? (The pink is a scribble of where I think the lighting would be, but I'm rather clueless on technique.)

Spoiler: show
Constructive criticism is highly appreciated! <3

JoB

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Re: WIP Me into Finishing This Art
« Reply #57 on: April 18, 2021, 01:40:45 AM »
I'm rather proud of the hair and most of the body, but how the heck do you do lighting, lips, noses, etc?? (The pink is a scribble of where I think the lighting would be, but I'm rather clueless on technique.)
The sharply-contoured shadows in the scene strongly suggest that there is a single, point-shaped source of light. Most of the light effects currently shown suggest that it is off to the right¹ of the scene, pretty much sitting on the wall (if it extends straight to the right¹), somewhere around shoulder/head height of a standing person.

First off, note that that's a lighting that a photographer would hate (in RL, it would produce deep shadows on the left¹ wall and the left¹ half of the chair and the person portrayed) and insist on changing. For a painting, I guess it's up to the artist to decide whether they want to do "a RL scene" (with a lighting that never was meant for more than allowing the person in the armchair to read a book) or one with "artist arranged" lighting.

Having that said, the effects most clearly contradicting the light source as described in the first paragraph are the shadow of the head (should be on the left¹ wall), the highlight on her right² leg (should be on our right¹, rather than the left¹, or possibly only on her upper leg, as the armrest might block it from the lower leg), and the lower-right¹ edge of the chair's shadow (it extends to the floor in front of the chair, which would require the light source to be above the chair, rather than off the right of the scene).

In addition, the shadows underneath the chair look like the chair's and the person's superimposed. In reality, the shadow of the (intransparent and closer to the ground) armchair should remain the same whether there's a person sitting on it or not; the person's shadow would only show around the chair's.

Last not least, what jumped out to me first were not the inconsistencies in the lighting but that there's no way that a normal human arm could connect left² shoulder and left² hand and still stay entirely out of our view.  Even if the left² armrest had a cut-out to permit the arm to pass "through" it at the shoulder, the arm would have to be about twice as long as the other to run unseen to the wrist and allow the hand's position.

Edit to clarify: "Left" and "right" as seen
¹ from our POV,
² from the chair's / portrayed person's.
« Last Edit: April 18, 2021, 01:45:44 AM by JoB »
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moredhel

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Re: WIP Me into Finishing This Art
« Reply #58 on: April 19, 2021, 02:17:58 PM »
I'm rather proud of the hair and most of the body, but how the heck do you do lighting, lips, noses, etc?? (The pink is a scribble of where I think the lighting would be, but I'm rather clueless on technique.)

Hair and Body are really great. I actually like how you did the nose.But the Lighting really puzzles me. For the pink highlights on the body at least 3 Lightsources would be needed. And none of them could explain the shadow of the chair. so we would need at least 4 light sources. But if there should be more highlights and they would not be this big.
If not intended to be puzzling, I do it this way, i Set the first hihglight, where it feels to look good an that defines where the other highlights an the shadows have to be.

I am not an expert, so if you want to do it differently do so.

Kitty

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Re: WIP Me into Finishing This Art
« Reply #59 on: May 05, 2021, 07:20:02 AM »
i gave up on other stuff and started a new thing again
but at least it's going somewhere

Spoiler: flat colors • show


Spoiler: shaded following a tutorial • show


tutorial link

not done yet, i might make the overlays gentler or something
plus i wanna make a proper background.


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