TheDart

Just you.

Even worse than that, though, is when you find a piece of art you did a year or so earlier and think it looks better than what you're currently doing. *sobs*

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I tell him that all the time , sadly alot of art types are their own worst critics

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Yeah, we're like that.

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For obvious reasons, too.

We can see the art as we envisioned it in our heads - perfect. Then we see what we've drawn. Sometimes, there are a few little things that the artist hates but noone else will notice in a million years, simply because the artist is the one who put it there and doesn't need to look to see it. Sometimes, everything is ALL WRONG.

Artists see art a lot differently than everyone else does. Especially our own. It sux to be us.

So I got a little bored tonight. Maybe. Hopefully, Speedster will be pleased.

I've got a larger version of this one suitable for coloring that I'm about to shoot a link for into your PM box, dude.

Nah, it's pretty much everything but the concept. The jagged lines are something I'm getting better about, especially lately - I used to do my digital inks with the pencil tool since I usually worked pretty small, but I'm teaching myself to work bigger so that I can use the brush and still have actual BLACK lines instead of blurry gray ones.

That hand that's supposed to be gripping the Jawa's cloak.. gyagh! *splashes eyes with bleach*

I can see why you don't like the first one. It looks a bit bland, messy and unfinished. The second one looks really freakin' sweet, though - a very good piece of evidence that a li'l dynamic posing and a lot of nice coloring goes a very long way.

Of the pieces I've done this year, this one makes my eyes bleed the most. The character interaction, the poses, the hands, THE COLORING.. oh, Gods above, why did I upload it?!

Tablets take a ton of practice. We've had our for a couple of years now, and although I don't get to use it as often as Su_Lin does, I'm only just starting to get really comfortable drawing with it. Lots and lots of trial and error. It's really worth it in the end, though - less mess is nice. And we love the undo button, precious. Yes.

Slow periods happen. A lot of folks are probably still busy with the tail end of the holidays and New Year's approaching, too. Some more folks may pipe up after they've had a chance to send visiting family home (or return home themselves) and take a few deep breaths.

I tend to stink with real media, so I was curious. I know that colorless blender markers are awesome for smoothing out colored pencils (they get rid of the graininess and blend the colors together nicely when you're shading), but that's about as far as my expertise there goes.

Tracing is a very good way to learn the basics and build yourself a solid foundation, which you seem to have. To improve beyond where you are now, though, I'd suggest picking up some anatomy books - Burne Hogarth's series (Dynamic Figure Drawing, Drawing Dynamic Hands, etc) is my personal favorite. Looking at your pieces, I think this would be the place to start. You've got a pretty good grip on things, but there is room for improvement, and this stuff will help a ton. (Also, don't be afraid to use reference photos for poses. Those are extremely helpful, and not at all a "bad" thing to use.) My art had stalled out for a while before I picked up those books and started using photos for a helping hand more often.

Learning the basics of color theory is also a very good idea. It'll give you some ideas on how to design costumes, as well as how to light and shade characters once you start moving in that direction. Remember, black and white are tones, not colors. A plain white light source with plain black shadows makes the baby Statesman cry when it could be a more visually dynamic color that compliments the rest of the image.

What are you coloring with, out of curiousity?

I haven't had a chance to swipe Su's inks and start laying some color down, but I'll be doing it for fun when I do - no prize needed here, if you decide to hand anything out.

Thanks for the welcome and comments, all. It warms me heart, it does.

I went ahead and busted out my inking pens and Painter to take a crack at the sketch I did yesterday - you can see the sketch and the colors here.

Black or no, I really like a few of these designs - Kamera and Thunder in particular. On Thunder, it's the contrast between the black and yellow that really sells it - it looks very sharp. Kamera, on the other hand, just looks neat.

Some characters look really really good in a "living silhouette" style.

Nice! I really love the colors on the G-nome piece.

Thank you! Just wait 'til I get a photo added to the Bio page - I'm still trying to decide between my original 1977 Star Wars t-shirt or one of my newer ThinkGeek purchases.

Su_Lin and I spent most of Dragon-Con in the gaming panels - we actually hung out with the art director for SpyDock (Galactic Civilizations II) pretty much the entire con, and he and his wife bought us dinner one evening. It was very cool. That said, the con was packed with the usual hordes of our fellow gaming geeks and nerds, and given how full the relatively obscure SpyDock-ran panels were, I doubt they were bluffing.

(Tip for any future DC attendees - inside the mall that attaches to the Hyatt and Mariott, if you go past most of the food court, you will find a Willy's Mexicana Grill. EAT THERE. You're welcome.)

I'd be up for a collab, sure! Drop me an e-mail and we can brainstorm something.

z0mg rly?!/1?1

Haw. I do take commissions, and I try not to charge too much because I, too, am a poor poor slob. You can shoot me an e-mail if you want to discuss it, the contact link there should be working. I can do a few requests also, but I've gotta limit those to pretty simple sketches (unless I really dig the character's look!) to make sure I have enough time to do the paying work.

I figured I should probably be a good forum-user and venture out of my server's board to make some noises about mein art. Aiming for one's target audience is never a bad thing.

So, howdy folks. I just went on a bit of a binge, so there are a number of new images hot off the scanner cooling off in my gallery that you're welcome to take a gander at.

A lot of the stuff is old and rough, but part of that is just the learning process. I'm getting better with inking pens and the Wacom, so my stuff is becoming a bit more smooth as time goes on - and my growing collection of Burne Hogarth books is also bound to help.

NSFW typically means that a link has content that is graphic in some way or is otherwise unacceptable for viewing in a professional workplace. Booblies and strong language are two examples.

Nice! That's got to be the sort of project that makes you feel downright giddy. Well done getting it underway, and my most sincere condolences to your retirement fund.

Though it looks like it's already shaping up to be one, I hope you have a good 2007, too.

While I'm a horrible animator, I really have to take a second to commend your taste in games. EBA is awesome, quirky and bizarre. (I'm currently banging my head against the third difficulty level's Jumpin' Jack Flash stage. This is gonna take a while.)

I hope you score yourself an avatar!

Ditto that. Coloring is definitely not my strong point, but sometimes I like to pretend. (Besides, with a name like Legacy, how can I resist?)

Prizes schmeizes. Kids these days, no appreciation for taking home the pride of a job well done. Why, back in my day...

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I would really rather *NOT* see contests, never mind contests with prizes. A contest has to be fair, which means you've got to put a bunch of rules in. (Like 'no edits at all' for the contests to get your screenshots in the villain write-ups.) When you do that, you'll almost certainly push out the folks who have the best tools in order to make the contest accessible.

I'm also no fan of weekly/monthly/quarterly.... if something good gets posted then get it up there. I don't want to see poor stuff put up because it happened to be the only thing posted that week. I really don't want to see great stuff skipped because another great thing happened to be posted the same week.

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I don't think anyone is suggesting that having your art added to the main site would be dependent on a contest - I think we'd like to see more art on the main site, AND contests. Two separate things. If you aren't replying to that idea, I apologize for misreading.

WRT contests, though.. they wouldn't really be contests if they were super accessable, would they? I have no business entering a contest focused on 3D models because I don't work in 3D, and I'm cool with that. I also have no business in a contest focused on drawing a background, because I stink at 'em. A contest will encourage me to work on getting better at them, mind, but fan art contests by their very nature already disqualify a portion of the subscriber base - those who don't draw.

Please try to keep it civil, boys.

Hey Lighthouse.

I do think contests could be a fun idea - whether there are any prizes beyond having the winning pieces displayed on the official site is up to you guys, though. As cool as a badge in-game would be, it's far from necessary for it to feel worth while, and I know that an in-game art gallery could prove to be a deceptively large undertaking that may just not be feasible. Cool ideas, don't get me wrong, but I don't think any of us want to delay any other work on the game just for an in-game special nook.

There are movie theaters all over Paragon - maybe some contests could be held for the art on the posters. They could be rotated every three to six months or so, or even yearly, if that would make it a more easily accomplished undertaking. Likewise on designing billboards, or Arachnos propaganda posters, or the like.

If you wanted to put icing on the cake, you could try to find out from the coders if there was a way to make all of those things targettable so that people in-game could see who created the piece currently displayed. A PITA, but an optional one.

Seeing the fan art gallery on the main page getting updated again would be cool, too.

If Sexy Jay needs help coming up with designs for new costume pieces for us - new tights patterns, new chest emblems, new monstrous heads, and so forth - you could hold contests for player-submitted designs. Those would get a lot of paperwork and legal mumbo jumbo to go along with them, I imagine, but I think a lot of us would be very willing to sign on the dotted line to help make the game even more customizable than it already is. I know I would. But I say that as an aspiring MMO concept artist.

If you want to bounce any of these around a bit to work some into a workable proposal, Lightouse, my PM box is always open. Feel free to bug me. I'd be happy to take some of the work off of your hands if you need it.