The Forum's Art Museum

[Songbird]

Thanks! I did not know all these facts about hands. I just thought, well, all the tutorials I've seen compare wings to hands rather than the other way around, so I thought most people would have learned to draw hands first. Feathers are fingers... this statement will be my food for thought for the next few days, I think.

Oh, and I'm very interested in this strange discussion about drawing software I've been using CSP for a while and my biggest problem is how clean all the drawings look!! They're too clean!!!! Ugh!! Yes, even the oil brush. But Ps runs like a turtle on my computer, which is annoying.

Yeah! Calling them fingers is a bit of smartass oversimplification from my part since the actual bones are only at the base, but those asymmetrical primary feathers are like fingers in function: Manipulate their surroundings. In that case it's mostly the air.

These are the feathers that will direct airflow in flight. It's no coincidence they span from the hands and phalanges. They also tend to be the feathers on which a bird will rest their weight when they got issues on land—they rarely go for the hands since they're tiny, they adjust the primary feathers when they can.


(source: internet o_o)

And when it comes to bats we see actual finger bones there hah.

I should thank you again for the feather fingers by the way. It's inspired me to invent a silly warm up/confidence-building exercise for hands and limbs that might or might not work—I've got to do enough of these first to see.

About CSP I also feel it's a bit too clean. I like the way the colors blend, and I love the "transparent" color (been missing it since my paint tool SAI days) but unless I figure how to make it more painterly I might have to jump into PS from time to time to make it work, which is less than ideal.


MollyVampiric Nice drawing! I can't tell how much of an epicanthic fold you want going on with this character but I admire the bravery involved with experimenting with varied eye shapes. I mean, to this day I keep drawing people with different shapes over and over again because it can be so hard and I used to simply shy away from trying ones like you've been doing. Good job!



EDIT
Figured I should post some actual art so here's a silly chart about slicing characters I made to keep referencing when thumbnailing pages. I'm putting it in a spoiler tag because though there's no nudity she's in her undies—a kind of a PG vitruvian man elf if you will. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the subject as usual; in this case composition for comic panels.

Spoiler: show

I have been sketching barbie-doll naked people though. Trying to work on my gestures to lose the stiffness.

[catbirds]

:O Songbird, you've now taught me a strange new fact about birds! But bird feathers are quite fragile, so I can't imagine resting on them can be good in the long run. It's probably a greater problem if they hurt their feet too much. Weird how, as renowned for flight as they are, pretty much all birds except hummingbirds and flightless birds essentially rely on their feet and tail to get off the ground

The thought of a bat's skeletal structure is a little strange, but not the greatest struggle for artists, fortunately! (imo)

I should thank you again for the feather fingers by the way. It's inspired me to invent a silly warm up/confidence-building exercise for hands and limbs that might or might not work—I've got to do enough of these first to see.

About CSP I also feel it's a bit too clean. I like the way the colors blend, and I love the "transparent" color (been missing it since my paint tool SAI days) but unless I figure how to make it more painterly I might have to jump into PS from time to time to make it work, which is less than ideal.

I'm curious about the exercise! This sort of DIY exercise-making isn't something I've heard of yet, so it's super cool that you're building your own set of them

For me, I struggled a lot with how CSP was basically built for making clean lineart, so a good compromise was using the flat oil brush for lineart AND the actual painting. However, you seem to be more into painting entirely, so it still seems like Ps is the way to go! For now, at least, because I've yet to see any digital artist propose a more practical solution .

Also, I am absolutely awestruck by your little vitruvian person. It laid out a whole lot of things that I visualized to be sort of... intuitively uncomfortable to look at while planning paintings and comics (not even with human characters but your diagram still works). On the other hand, I can imagine cutting images off at those red lines (neck, joints, etc...) as a VERY useful tool for visual symbolism or deliberately uncomfortable panels.

[Songbird]

catbirds All wings-on-land knowledge should be treated as the empirical observations from my part they are. A few birds use their wings to tidy up the terrain for courtship but I've never personally witnessed those. The ones I've seen making up for leg and balance issues were all injured or sick birds, and they really like to use the primary feathers as helpers when given the choice. I think the dome-like configuration with wings loosely open distributes their weight preventing the strain, and it seems more practical to use these feathers too due the wing span and their extended mobility. Meanwhile a bird trying to rest on their chest/head/wing bones tends to be a really bad sign.

Bats wings are a good starting point for dragon wings!

I have to play more with CSP. There's a way to make painterly pieces with round plain brushes which to go the impressionist route, but that's physically taxing. I'd rather let tools do the heavy lifting of creating textures nowadays.

On the other hand, I can imagine cutting images off at those red lines (neck, joints, etc...) as a VERY useful tool for visual symbolism or deliberately uncomfortable panels.

You nailed it! It goes both ways, helping to nipping accidental unhelpful compositions in the bud and doing it with intent.


About the exercise I still can't speak about the benefits in the long run but I am getting more longer confident lines and curves and that's something, I guess. I've been doing trees. Exposed tree roots more specifically since they're denser than canopies. They've got a few things going on:

- Gradual tapering like fingers and limbs
- Asymmetrical but balanced silhouettes like limbs', knots like joints, wavy surfaces like tendons
- Foreshortening
- Quicker, less "expensive" to draw

All without the pressure of getting a 1:1 copy to make it look right. The results so far, spoiler because it's a bunch of images I'm too lazy to crop to focus only on relevant parts + cw barbie doll anatomy. :'D

Spoiler: show

The broken lines in these hands show my initial hesitation.



The trees aren't pretty or even easy to understand like fully rendered faces or anything, but they do serve a noble purpose.




I'm also switching to digital sketching for certain studies to decrease the amount of lines needed to thicken something. All I have at my disposal at the moment is a 0.5mm mechanical pencil, heh.




It looks like a mess when you have too many overlapping bits, but giving fingers the "tree limbs" treatment by using swift wavy lines to preview placement, silhouette and curvature in one go is interesting. I don't know where in my process this approach will ultimately feature but I'm sure it'll be somewhere.




Works for torsos and limbs too. o_o

[Vulpes]

:O Songbird, you've now taught me a strange new fact about birds! But bird feathers are quite fragile, so I can't imagine resting on them can be good in the long run.

The biologist in me can't leave this alone... 

Feathers are much tougher than you might think, especially primaries! I suppose if most of the feathers you encounter are from a pillow, your impression makes sense - those should be the soft inner down feathers, maybe a few contour feathers. But the primaries and secondaries are the flight feathers, and they have to be pretty tough for that. If you find a nice big feather on the ground, odds are it's a primary - have a close look, they're amazing! There's the central rachis, and branching out from that are the barbs. The barbs are covered in barbules, which have tiny hooks that catch on adjacent barbules. If you spread the barbs apart, you can see the barbules sticking together. This allows the feather to act very much like a single unit, and gives it surprising strength.

I once found a few northern gannet primaries on a beach. It was immediately clear that they weren't gull primaries, which were also lying around - the barbules had quite broad bases, which made them more rigid, and the whole feather was... incredible. It makes perfect sense, though. Gulls mostly find their food along the shore. You may see them sit on the surface and dunk to grab something, or maybe drop into the water from a couple metres up, but that's it. Gannets on the other hand hunt from the air, and will dive from up to 30 metres, and may hit the water travelling at around 100 km/h. They fold their wings to do this, but those big primaries are still subjected to terrific forces, both in the air, on impact, and while diving through the water. That's why they have the extra reinforcement.

Of course feathers, even gannet primaries, do wear, and they get moulted and replaced when they do. So an injured bird can use its wings for balance on the ground without risking long-term damage - if it survives its injury, the feathers will be replaced eventually.

End biology lesson. 

Songbird, I really like the chart on where to cut figures. I'm no artist, but when I see something seems off, it's really nice to understand why. Also this may be useful to me on those rare occasions when I attempt to photograph people (I'm terrible...) because I suspect that I habitually break all those rules... and not on purpose for effect!  :'D

[Mirasol]

Mirasol
And is still helping! Thanks for the references, I didn't know either comic. I love how cinematic Scurry looks in special, although the mere thought of painstakingly painting all this fur makes me shudder.

These sketches were fast to draw, I spent more time testing the tools than actually drawing. I managed a page spread and few other bits in a day, nothing super elaborate but enough to show it's doable. The plan is to do more ~8 pages to settle into the style then give the initial pages another pass because they'll surely deviate in style and confidence from whatever I ultimately pick. Bonus points for creating a buffer to last a month.

Ah, I´m sorry if I came across like telling you the level of Scurry is something you need to do. ^^" It is indeed a very complicated artstyle, though very beautiful too. Of course you´re not expected to paint in so much detail. I remember when Scurry was still updating, the creator often had to take long breaks because the painting took so long. The point I was trying to make was more along the lines of "Comics with relatively detailed/unstylized art can work well too". If you find a way to do that which doesn´t take ages, even better! And good luck with creating a buffer!

(Also I´m continuing to learn things here! *swoops in to save that person-panelling-diagramm* You are going about things a lot more analytical than I do, Songbird, and that is teaching me a lot! I tend to rely on intuition, so if something looks off I usually have no clue why.)

And very nice drawings, comics and sketches, everyone! (I also apprechiate the biology-lessons!)

[catbirds]

The biologist in me can't leave this alone... 
...
End biology lesson. 

LOL thank you, I haven't actually tested it out because I mostly just watch birds. I was mostly visualizing just some chafing while dragging itself along a rocky crag or something Poor feathery fellow

Not related to art, but I really wish I could learn more about birds I was an avid birdwatcher when I was 12, not so much anymore.

Songbird, your sketchbook pages feel so complete as usual! I love drawing tree roots too, but more for the enjoyment of seeing the overlapping bits than for artistic development.

An art teacher I had once made me draw figures with clean, continuous lines because she believed it would build confidence, so your tree root idea does have a solid base. You've managed some very dynamic figures, too! The roots have a creepy appearance sometimes, though.

Seeing all these, I've begun to think that it may be a good time for me to develop my skills regularly like this, too. I'll come back with my own sketchbook drawings one day! Ones that look like good, full sketchbook pages, for once

I have to play more with CSP. There's a way to make painterly pieces with round plain brushes which to go the impressionist route, but that's physically taxing. I'd rather let tools do the heavy lifting of creating textures nowadays.

I have done this and it was pretty fun, all things considered! (I can't remember where I saved the file... :'D)

If you're trying to make a personal piece, it's a super fulfilling way to paint! I use my computer exclusively for fanart, so there's always a bit of emotion driving it and it works well for "the impressionist route." But, alas, if I were to try to make money off of digital art, it would take way too long to use a style that requires a lot of underappreciated effort to most viewers A bit too much effort, in my opinion.

[Vulpes]

Not related to art, but I really wish I could learn more about birds I was an avid birdwatcher when I was 12, not so much anymore.

You could make it related to art - one great way to learn about something is to draw it. You don't need to be a "twitcher", who will drive 100s of km at the drop of a hat to maybe see a small drab bird in a bush. Watch the birds where you live. Get a basic bird book and learn what the common species are, and how they live their lives. Try to draw them! Of course I've rarely attempted to draw birds from life, they move too much and I draw far too slowly, but even if you draw from photos I think it helps to know how they move, what they do, etc. I've been hand-feeding chickadees and nuthatches in the winter for years, and have learned an enormous amount about them as a result. Such personalities! Hm... I guess maybe I should put my pencils where my mouth is and draw them - goodness knows I have enough photographs to work from!

[moredhel]

I am still trying to learn how to do watercolor. I tried to paint a human. I came to the conclusion it can be done in this medium but not by me at my current skill level.



I painted it with only one color, because with more colors it was even harder and looked more creepy than this one.

[Sevseres]

moredhel you did awesome! I think starting with B&W is a good practice since getting the contrast right is really important for the niceness of the coloring. Your shading looks great too! I really adore the watercolor medium. Here’s a scarecrow granny I did months ago because why not.

Good luck to both of us on our watercolor journey!

And wow, bird nerding! Yay! Can I drop this awesome app I know, “Merlin Bird ID”? It’s made by eBird people (which is a cool bird site) and can ID all your bird sightings like it’s nothing. It’s found mine from crappy photos and terribly unsure descriptions. You can also download the birds of your area and discover what birds are currently around you, with cool facts about them and their songs and their calls and all. It’s just the best, I love it! I also saw a black stork today on a hike which was neat.

[catbirds]

Aaah, birdnerding! My favourite activity.

You could make it related to art - one great way to learn about something is to draw it. You don't need to be a "twitcher", who will drive 100s of km at the drop of a hat to maybe see a small drab bird in a bush. Watch the birds where you live. Get a basic bird book and learn what the common species are, and how they live their lives. Try to draw them!

I've made several bird illustrations in the past, actually. A far-too-great proportion relative to any other subject matter! If you seek out one of my older posts in this thread, you'll find the one I've poured the most effort into so far. It's gotten more stylized over the years. I used to just copy bird guide birds, and I slowly moved towards having fun with them.

They're a pretty interesting lesson in character design, too! The whole thing about bird identification is that it requires you to remember the one or two distinguishing characteristics that show how a bird is absolutely not like its close relative. Sometimes, it's colour. Sometimes, it's a crest. Sometimes, it's a slightly different coloured streak! Not totally different from designing characters.

Sevseres, about that app! It reminds me, I tried it once long, long ago. I didn't have a smartphone at the time, though, so I just stuck with a regular paper bird guide most of the time. Back then, it was more or less a glorified dichotomous key, but now that it's been upgraded, I might pick it up again!

Black storks are so cool, btw! They seem like such magical animals by appearance, though I guess every bird I haven't seen is kind of like that for me.

By the way, your scarecrow granny looks very familiar! If you've posted it elsewhere, I might have run into it at some point. It's a very warm drawing, and the hatching (mixed media?) was used to show texture well! The granny also looks very warm and kind, like she's going to give me cookies or something And speaking of birds, those cardinals are the cutest!

moredhel, if this is your start to painting portraits with watercolour, I believe you are headed somewhere great! There's some good detail here, like the slight depth with the eye sockets, the nose shape, and perhaps the implied wrinkles around the eyes and nose? And this person looks very human, which is a big win! I hope you continue!

Since I did talk about painting many birds, I feel like it might be good to post an older illustration here.

Spoiler: a slight contribution • show

This painting is super old! It was one of the first watercolour paintings that I was proud of! I think it looks kind of washed out now, but it's okay, I enjoyed painting it. I also posted it on my old tumblr blog two years ago when I painted it, although that blog no longer exists

[Vulpes]

I've made several bird illustrations in the past, actually. A far-too-great proportion relative to any other subject matter! If you seek out one of my older posts in this thread, you'll find the one I've poured the most effort into so far. It's gotten more stylized over the years. I used to just copy bird guide birds, and I slowly moved towards having fun with them.

Ah, I remember the illustration but I hadn't connected it to you. Beautiful! And the one you just posted was quite a surprise, at first I was focused on the crystals and the architecture and wondered, "What bird?" and then I saw it!  :'D  I imagine there's a very cool story surrounding it.

Sevseres, I might actually try that app out - although I fear it will be incompatible with my phone. I tried to be a responsible citizen and download the Covid Alert app (used in Canada) but my phone, which is all of 5 years old, is one model too ancient to run it.

moredhel, I'll have to check back later to see your watercolour, it seems to be too much for my rural internet at the moment. Time for a reboot!

[Sevseres]

catbirds it also took me a while spot the bird! It looks really cool though  I love me some huge birds. I wonder if there is a story behind it that you’d like to share?

[moredhel]

moredhel, I'll have to check back later to see your watercolour, it seems to be too much for my rural internet at the moment. Time for a reboot!

Don blame your connection. My server has some problems. (the / drive is physically damaged and looking for the most usable backup led to some loss of function and ssl certificates). I think I will get it fixed in the next hours.

Sevseres I like the scarcrow granny. The intense colors let it look like summertime.

[Vulpes]

Ah, now it's working! Nice work, moredhel - watercolour is darned difficult, and for someone just learning, you're doing great. I like the monochrome, it's a brilliant idea to get the hang of how the paint behaves without worrying about colour.

Sevseres, I forgot to say, your scarecrow granny is awesome! I love the very unafraid cardinals. 

[catbirds]

catbirds it also took me a while spot the bird! It looks really cool though  I love me some huge birds. I wonder if there is a story behind it that you’d like to share?

Yeah, okay, that wasn't the best artistic choice that I made at the time! I ought to keep on working on composition and contrast, but I think I've gotten better since!

There wasn't a story back when I painted it, but it became one over time because I kept using that OC in paintings (except with changed skin tone, clothes, etc...) Unfortunately, the bird snuck its way out of the main cast! It went from a story about a big bird and a tired labourer to one about a dragon-person and a tired mercenary, and who knows what it'll be by the time I put it to paper? But I like the bird, so it'll stay.

I tried to be a responsible citizen and download the Covid Alert app (used in Canada) but my phone, which is all of 5 years old, is one model too ancient to run it.

Oh! Wait, I haven't heard of this app! I should also be a good citizen and download it, especially because I live in an urban area in Canada. I only hope it doesn't register random passerby outside my house as close encounters :'D Thanks for letting me know, haha. And I wish you the best in following all other measures to stay safe, if you can't find a way to get that app working.