So I came to realize that I appreciate and admire drawn art more than just about any other creative venture, so I started taking a Character Art class about three weeks ago. Largely I've just been watching the tutorial videos and drawing circles on my tiny tablet to get my coordination. My first assignment was to pick a character and draw it. I picked Zoe as my character and worked on this for more hours than I'd like to admit, and that's even before I draw all the cyber-bits. I'd love to hear the opinion and critique of anyone as I'm obviously trying to learn and realize I need a lot more practice. I'll try to add the details from the cybernetics but I want to take a break for a bit before I come back to it. Also fuck hands, as well as feet. Also egg head, need to work on the egg head
Looks nice so far, man. But if it's not too late, you need to rock her a bit to her right. Alternatively, straighten her left leg, then bend her right. As it stands, her center of mass is dangling over her left side, and she's about to slip on that crowbar.
There's not a lot to critique tbh. I suggest starting with a bunch of gesture sketches and work your way from there.
Alright guys, so I decided I need to practice my ass off to get better at art because I really want to be able to do high quality drawings like Mothman, RobotJones, DeadlyOcean, JinwooPark, Spud etc whose work I really enjoy, and to be able to do what they do would be a dream of mine. So I decided to start again: Overall, I had a lot of fun with this as it's the first ever fully colored digital drawing I've ever done. I had a lot of trouble with layers, line thickness and keeping the linework together. I need to keep practicing foreshortening, shading and definitely figure studies. I was also going to do a boring cityscape for the background, but then the idea of orange to contrast the Kamau's blue seemed like a good idea, and I could also incorporate water pretty easily to go with theme. Anyway, I'm really trying to get better so if anyone had some tips or tricks that'd help me, I'd love to hear it. My reference model is PhelanDavion here: https://www.deviantart.com/phelandavion/art/Sniper-STOCK-XVII-426927705 My reference for the sunset is here: https://www.amazon.com/Red-And-Orange-Sunset/dp/B072LDJDHS
@Keyrott I say you've done a fantastic job. Seems like you have gotten better as time has gone on. Keep pushing forward because the fruit of your labours is starting to show.
Thank you man, I really appreciate that! Practice is doing me good so I'm gonna keep hammering away. Thinking of doing a Fiday as it's one of my other favorite units but I eventually want to do all kinds of stuff from all the factions.
I think there's a lot I want to try, Vet Kazaks are badass and so are the Swiss Guards, Intruders, Asuras, Omegas, Guarda de Assalto, Liu Xing or Shang Ji, lots of stuff I think would be fun. If you couldn't tell, most of these have helmets or masks because faces are still really hard for me and I need a lot more practice xD Faces are super difficult for me so I gotta keep grinding. Maybe I should force myself to draw more in full pictures so I can learn. But if anyone's followed my dossier thread, I pretty much like the art style across most of the units so I think any of them could be fun, I really like Infinity's aesthetic.
Practice drawing human faces & keep doing the helmet pictures that you know how to complete. As you stated, the more you have hammered away at, the better you have gotten. Best to keep that steam engine running.
My best advice: just do this step. Over, and over, and over, and over again, on different reference shots of different poses. Don't just outline the shapes, also apply cross-sectional lines to establish the volume and angle of each shape. Reality-check similar pieces against each other-- does it make sense that one thigh is twice the size of the other one? If I mime that pose with my arms, is my hand flat to the camera or pointing slightly toward it? How much of what I'm looking at is the model's body, and how much of it is his baggy clothes? Trace it until you can draw it freehand, then draw freehand until you memorize the segment shapes from every angle, then keep going until you can replicate the pose from a different angle, then keep practicing that until you can create your own natural-looking poses with the same geometry. Become a master of cylinderpeople, and then worry about the rest of the process. Nothing drives me more nuts than artists who learned to detail and light their figures before they completely nailed down anatomy. Squishy or uneven anatomy absolutely SHINES OUT under even the most professional surface work. It isn't fun, but it's how you get better. :) And yeah, sure, occasionally turn the nicest Cylinderpeople into finished drawings. That part isn't actually all that important to learning, but it's how you keep up your motivation to keep trudging along the Cylindrical Path. :P
Thanks man, I'm gonna keep practicing my proportions for sure because I don't have nearly enough repetitions. And yeah finishing the art out is definitely motivating to keep doing the cylinder thing, thanks for the advice ^_^
That redraw looks so much better, why you gotta do me dirty like that? jk lol, I'll try to start doing this to get a better idea of volumes it's a really good idea. I did it for the gun because the gun was particularly challenging for me to transpose.