Art Discussion

[SugaAndSpice]

I don't have the time to draw anymore, but I do have all my practice logged in my DA scrapbook.
I mainly focused on human anatomy and poses.  Hopefully it's not too terrible.

That is not terrible! It is really good! *coughcoughbetterthanminecough*

[Unwary]

Working on the concept for a mask I intend to make.

[P__]

unwary: I like the mask, but it looks like it's sitting very high on the head (if i'm correct, the top of the head should be near the bottom of the 3rd "bubble" from top). Also, it has no eye-holes D: your shadows and highlights look stronger than the last drawing (maybe because there, they partly doubled as sketch-line) but still pretty bland. Don't be afraid to use much darker tones, including black. Actually I know I tend to do that too, my solution is to put the darkest tone early on, and make it *really* dark, so I'll be forced to get more into higher values.
Anyway, I should start from a grey background next time I do a digital thing, looks like a smart thing to do

as promised, here's my value-practice

Spoiler: show

(also I put them on a DeviantArt account, so I could upload directly from phone and I can find them back, too)

and here's the mask:

(yeh, I know, the skin shading is kinda half-assed, and the texture of the top-mask doesn't look very good at all but hey, practice!)
that's done with a HB pencil btw

-_-_- edit so as not to doublepost -_-_-
for the next themed practice, may I suggest either faces (because obviously we can never practice anatomy enough) or !!!panel re-draws!!! (because haiz made it look like a good idea in the Art Museum)

and if you want to join in on this, it's now or never! (or later, we'll take you with anyway)

[Curry]

Hhhh this looks really fun and would love to join if you guys don't mind? I mean, I don't know if you don't want somebody who's spent as much time drawing as I have, but there are a lot of technique things I still need to get down and practice is always good?

[Unwary]

I think you would be welcome. Just talking about this has made me realize how big a variety there is to unpracticed art.

P__ I know what you mean, the chin is to low. The lower left most bubble is supposed to line up over my eye and be visible through. I know tricks to make the eye hole glow, and if I angle it out from my face  I can look down my nose and see whats under my feet.(I have worked with mask with extremely limited vision and this one seems almost luxurious... A whole eye facing forward, and downward vision!) I also think I will take your advise, and try and broaden the shading. I am not happy with the results when I tied to color it this morning.
In other news, cool mask, until you said skin tones I was thinking that it was still being mached on the mold, with some of the lines on the cheek being folds in the saran wrap base.

[mithrysc]

for the next themed practice, may I suggest either faces (because obviously we can never practice anatomy enough) or !!!panel re-draws!!! (because haiz made it look like a good idea in the Art Museum)

and if you want to join in on this, it's now or never! (or later, we'll take you with anyway)

*pops in*

For a really helpful guide to understanding faces/ anatomy, I'd suggest Andrew Loomis' Drawing the Head and Hands (or Figure Drawing for All It's Worth, or anything by him, really)...which had been out of print since the 1970's, so you can (or could) find copies online. After a quick search, though, I think they've been reprinted? So, uh, still recommended but you might have to buy a physical copy.

[Unwary]

That does sound cool, I think i should look into some drawing books over the summer. Anyone else have recommendations?

[Lenny]

I'll just drop this here. Lackadaisy has a very brilliant author/artist who excels at drawing faces, and has a rather nice informative tutorial for it, too.

Also one for using basic shapes. Even if, like me, you never really use base lines/shapes in a base sketch beforehand, it is absolutely ESSENTIAL that you do have it in your head when you draw! It helps you realise how light falls onto things and how to create volume, rather than really 2D flat-looking things. All comes down to one rule: before you can draw the complicated thing, you need to simplify it as much as possible, break it down to its barest bones, then complicate it again. Kind of like sending information across networks. Whether you do this in your head before putting things down to canvas, or draw a skeleton sketch before hand, or a really messy spaghetti sketch, or blocks of colour, or whatever... as long as you do it in some form. You know those cool artists like Kim Jung Gi who draw entire scenes from their heads directly onto canvas in pen, with no base sketch of any kind, and who don't seem to make any mistakes while doing it? They've done all the sketching, plotting, all the drudge work, inside their head already. They don't just draw things, they've just learnt to do all of it quickly and improvise around "mistakes".

...now, none of those are books, but as the only books I've used over the past 7 years have been those of Andrew Loomis (and random tutorials on the net), I'm rather stuck. Hmm. Oh. Actually, the one book that helped me above all others when I was very much younger was How To Animate Film Cartoons by Preston Blair, published 1980. Though it was chiefly about animation, it covered so many areas, such as composition, movement, proportions, camera angles, perspective, character... that book was quite a treasure. The PDF for it is actually available if you look!

[Solovei]

I like having photo/picture references when I draw but I find that they almost never match what I have in my head... (though it's possible I'm just SUPER picky)

So, does anyone know of a good site for those? Or maybe even some kind of like... I dunno, person-posing program?

[Curry]

I like having photo/picture references when I draw but I find that they almost never match what I have in my head... (though it's possible I'm just SUPER picky)

So, does anyone know of a good site for those? Or maybe even some kind of like... I dunno, person-posing program?

Ooh, Eich gave me a pose site in the chat a little bit ago! It's useful for random poses but apparently can get a bit NSFW (although you can change that I'm pretty sure). Here's a couple that I've heard good things about and/or had a good time with myself!

[Solovei]

Ooh, Eich gave me a pose site in the chat a little bit ago! It's useful for random poses but apparently can get a bit NSFW (although you can change that I'm pretty sure). Here's a couple that I've heard good things about and/or had a good time with myself!

Ooooh thank you so much! I didn't know ANY of those and had been relying mostly on google image search XD

[Curry]

Ooooh thank you so much! I didn't know ANY of those and had been relying mostly on google image search XD

No problem! The last link is a lot of fun to scroll through, even if you're not looking for anything in particular, and it kind of has... tutorials and images for everything so if anybody needs reference (or even inspiration) THERE YOU GO

[Piney]

A place for artists of the forum to share their art knowledge. Ask and ye shall receive. \o/
You're also welcome to share tutorials by other artists that you found useful.

I made a tutorial on Reynir's dream-cloak back in December. It needs some tweaking, but I know a few people have found it useful.

[viola]

I can do tutorials for things like sketching or random multi media stuff but it may be a bit hard to do anything besides sketching until I get home again because I only had room to bring a few art supplies with me. This is kinda random, but I can also do orgami tutorials if anyone wants to learn how to do that. We can make orgami Lallis or something.

[Krisse Kovacs]

i basically let people ask me for help and tutorial and explanation when I stream I am happily help there. it is rare to see someone asking me, but it happened. whenever I stream and need any help, just ask. (if you join voice chat at is easier for me, to TALK while showing the way to do it, you don't need mic to listen)

I am bad at making tutorials... any kind of tutirials I used to make some shading and colouring tutorials but they suck. in stream I did good tutorials for body/anatomy, hand, also explained an easy (my way) or colouring and some techniques I use.