Drawing Depth (The frustration of one squirrel)

mistformsquirrel · 12-19-2006 07:06 PM

Alrighty folks >.<;;; The squirrel has a dillema... a quandry... a difficulty if you will - a PROBLEM!

I have, for years, been attempting to figure out how to do 'depth' in my drawings... shading helps, but I'm *always* missing something >.<

http://www.canvasartists.com/pencilsketch.jpg

Things like that (most definitely not mine >.< I just grabbed it off the web to use as an example)

I have no effing clue how to achieve anything even remotely close <;_;> I love doing anime style work... but I don't think I can advance much further in it without learning more basic stuff. And try as I might I'm having little luck trying to re-invent the wheel on my own <_ _>; I'm usually pretty poor at handling tutorials as well - which has made this significantly harder.

Does anyone have any advice?

I'll show you a pic I'm working on so you have an idea of what I'm working with >.<;;

The reason I'm so frustrated is that in working on my holiday pieces, and my Tarot bit too... I can see I'm getting better... but I'm still not seeing the sort of improvement I want. I feel like I'm barely above 'average webcomic' level of skill - and after 7 years+ of serious drawing I'm really really getting upset at being so slow to progress. I know I'm not very talented... I'm going to have to work my tail off to get any better, as it has always been >.< but for the life of me I can't *not* draw, and so I have to find improvement somehow.

I just hate that when I look at my work, it feels to me like something a decent twelve year old could do. And I'm 23. And I've been at this forever! GAHHHHH <T.T>

sorry <;_;>

Some examples of my pencil work (where I'm having the most trouble):

Yumii - Prolly the best of all of em.

Remn - Very new (just yesterday)

Ayanei

Another Ayanei

Yet another - '03/'04

Ayanei vs Duros - 2004ish I think... very old - the original is bigger (its done on posterboard). I think I draw better when I can draw bigger. But I can't scan anything bigge than 8x13 (I think that's the dimensions - close to that anyway)

Rei Ayanami fanart (This is from 2003 - I didn't draw the original, I copied it (not traced - just copied)) - This one is amazingly frustrating - I didn't draw it outright as I mentioned... I just copied it visually. Which frustrates me now because it looks really good in comparison to... everything else <-.->; Obviously its not really 'my' work anyway - but it shows that my hands can at least achieve it if my eye can percieve it (I rhymed!) - but why not out of my head? GHARRGH ><

Also from '03, an angel - I'd just come out of highschool a year and a half earlier (highschool nearly killed me hehe <X_X&gt so uhm... >.< that's why there's alot of depressing stuff in my older work, if anyone is wondering >.&lt I just realized how much there was hehe <x.x>

Anyways >.<;; I'll shuttup.

I just don't know what's wrong <;_;> I'm frustrated as all heck - I'd like to be able to do both realistic and better anime style things... and right now I'm feeling like my work is crapola.

Sorry for the ramble >.<; I am an annoyed rodent.

A Warrior's Friend: ID 335212 - Help Infernal save Valkyrie from Battle Maiden.
Above Mars Part 1: The Wellington: ID 159769 - Save Mars by destroying a monstrous battleship from the inside!
>.> My DA page, where I attempt to art.

Rowrsie · 12-19-2006 08:35 PM

Do you have Yahoo or AIM? If so IM me.

I'll give you what advice I can. Seeing as my current 'specialty' (note i said specialty not that i'm an expert or anything at it) is pencil renderings.

I think what you might want to work on most is learning light and shadow, cores, and reflected lights. That's what give drawings 'depth'. It's much more than just 'dark' in the back and 'light' in front.

But anyway. I found an awesome website about drawing and had all these lessons, but the link is at work If you pop on AIM or Yahoo I can send you it tomorrow.

mistformsquirrel · 12-19-2006 08:54 PM

I do indeed have AIM <@.@> I am (surprise!) mistformsquirrel on there >.> (I don't log in much <;.;&gt

Any help at all is much appreciated <x.x> My frustration with myself is quite through the roof at this point.

A Warrior's Friend: ID 335212 - Help Infernal save Valkyrie from Battle Maiden.
Above Mars Part 1: The Wellington: ID 159769 - Save Mars by destroying a monstrous battleship from the inside!
>.> My DA page, where I attempt to art.

ddgryphon · 12-19-2006 09:08 PM

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw/102...o.y=0&Go=Go

but especially:

Dynamic Light and Shade:

http://www.amazon.com/Dynamic-Light-Shad...TF8&s=books

whiteperegrine · 12-19-2006 09:16 PM

no worries squirrel...wrestle with the same problem when I put pencil to paper. one of the reasons I rarely do it. *shrug*

...although I will add, that besides light one has to be very mindful of objects and how they appear. make use of 3 dimensions when possible. think about how objects bend, if possible get a reference...or something close to what your working on and use it.

I do agree with rowr though about the lighting...but that is waaay beyond my skill level.~

...the sword is truth...

~whiteperegrine~

mistformsquirrel · 12-19-2006 11:12 PM

Thanks all >.<;

<_ _> so annoyed at me!

>.< Must keep working and not think about things that are not good!

A Warrior's Friend: ID 335212 - Help Infernal save Valkyrie from Battle Maiden.
Above Mars Part 1: The Wellington: ID 159769 - Save Mars by destroying a monstrous battleship from the inside!
>.> My DA page, where I attempt to art.

Zekiran_Immortal · 12-19-2006 11:57 PM

I know you like the anime style - but what might make your works more 'believable' in terms of shading, is the eyes. More realistic eyes would change the entire way a face looks. I noticed on one of your first examples there, there was adequate shading to show where a light source was, and the shape of the face and neck, but the eyes appear rather flat compared to that. They're striking, and it's a cute picture none the less, but it's a strong contrast to the actual depth that the rest of the face and head have.

That said, just keep drawing! I mean... I can't do anything even remotely like the image you use to example what you mean, it's why I choose to anthropomorphize or elf-ize people so I can get their 'essence' instead of their 'appearance'...

Please read my FEAR/Portal/HalfLife Fan Fiction!
Repurposed

Mercury_Blue · 12-20-2006 01:18 AM

There are a number of small little things in your example that really lend it it's depth. Beside just shading, notice that the artists lines follow the contour of the surface he's shading. That can help a lot. Also, in the area's of interest take note that there is not only a high level of contrast, but a great number of shades between the darkest and lightest and that everything except the lightest areas have some pencil work done on them. There is also a fine use of atmospheric perspective used. It's not overly noticeable like it would be in a landscape, but if you look for it you can see that the cheek, eye, and mouth planes are all in fine focus, but the nose loses focus as it comes out and the side of the head and ear lose focus as they recede into the background. They both become a bit fuzzier as they move out of the focus point. Finally is how the level of detail is distributed. The area's of interest, namely the front plane of the face have much more detail then the other parts of the drawing. As the areas become less important the level of detail lowers as does the crispness. A Leather Jacket has just as many if not more fine details then a human face, but the depiction puts it closer in detail to his hat, something with very few innate fine details.

That's all I can pick out about it when I'm half asleep. I'll edit this if I notice anything else when I'm more awake.

Fury_X · 12-20-2006 01:23 AM

Here's a huge tip i wish i had back in the day.... if you're drawing on the computer with a tablet, draw on a huge scale.... have your drawing drawn at something crazy like 3000 x 2500, when you're done, shrink it down to something small like 600x400 (i messed up the proportions but ya get my point) , you'll notice all your lines look alot cleaner, straighter, and more controlled. It helps enormously with real life drawings.

Dante_NA · 12-20-2006 01:40 AM

I agree with Zekiran.

I believe your pictures "lack depth" because of the anime likeness to them. To get a good sense of feel for depth, you really need to have proportions correct. We are so used to seeing the human face, that I think you dont see any depth in your drawings because they are so characterized.

Also, like pointed out and suspected by yourself, shadow is a big thing. I recently learned myself that shadow is much more than light and dark. There are actually 7 layers of "light/dark".

I'll run em down so you can see.

1. Highlights - These are the really bright spots, mostly seen on reflective materials. There should not be a lot of highlights on any given object.

2. The Light - The base light of your object. In other words, the light that is hitting the object, but not highlighting, nor run over by a shadow.

3. The Shadow - The basic, 1 tone shadow.

4. Core Shadow - The darkest part of the shadow. Contrary to belief, this is NOT on the part farthest from the lighted side.

5. Reflected Light - Reflected light typically reduces the shadow on the shadowed side of an object, due to light bouncing off, for instance, the floor if something is sitting upon the floor.

6. Reflected Shadow - If something is sitting on the floor, the shadow that it casts itself will reflect back upon it and create a very dark area at the bottom of the sphere.

7. Cast Shadow - ^^ The Casted Shadow

If you imagine a sphere, with the light source in the upper right, you can follow these 7 down the sphere (towards bottom left) in order of thier appearance. The 4 - Core Shadow, is actually just on the other side of the "middle" of the sphere.

Hard to explain without a book but hopefully that helps alittle bit.

I think a big thing though is proportion and most def eyes. Your eyes have no sense right now, that they wrap around the head. They look very "flat" so to speak.

All I can really say is study study study, and draw from what you see. Do not stick to only anime. Take a picture of a person and try to draw them, and repeat this process again and again. Then go back to anime and attempt to take what you've learned from drawing accurate proportions and go from there.

Hope it helps.

-Dante

mistformsquirrel · 12-20-2006 05:41 AM

Much appreciation all <~_~> Hopefully in the next month or two my experiments will pay off (we shall see!)

I've never before found it necessary to ask for help with the exception of getting started using Photoshop in the first place <~.~>;; (PMD helped me with that) - so this has been a wee bit humbling to have to do. But I think its going to be worth it. Hopefully I can advance.

I think my biggest annoyance - is that the type of anime I most enjoy (a type few people realize exists) has pretty realistic artwork; - there are some characterized bits... some hair might be oddly colored or kinda funky, or a person may be a bit distorted... but there's no mistaking the depth or effectiveness of the drawing >< and I've never ever come even remotely close!

And of course I will say, lately I've had the hankering to be more versatile... not every picture 'works' in an anime style <;_;> I already knew it, but at the time I didn't think it'd come up for me... but yah...

Sorry for the gibberish >.< Wish me luck, I shall be at my drawing desk <O.O>

(PS: <;_;> No I don't use a tablet - I do the old pen and paper route; main flaw seems to be that my scanner is so teensy; I have to draw on stupid 8x11 or sometimes on legal paper; some of my better drawings were done on posterboard which is obviously substantially larger <x_x>; But you can't even see everything in the drawings! There's a good inch and a half more to that Ayanei vs Duros piece, and a couple more in my Photobucket gallery are like that too <;_;> its also responsible for the weird shadow in some things, since it gets kinda bent-ish when scanned <-.->

Ok, really, seriously, I'm shutting up >< I've been up all night <;_;> forgive my confuzzled state! <T.T> *offers all tin of mixed nuts* My thanks!

A Warrior's Friend: ID 335212 - Help Infernal save Valkyrie from Battle Maiden.
Above Mars Part 1: The Wellington: ID 159769 - Save Mars by destroying a monstrous battleship from the inside!
>.> My DA page, where I attempt to art.

Dante_NA · 12-20-2006 06:23 AM

I just think one thing that might effect some people when trying to draw anime, is that all they have ever drawn is anime. To me, Anime style is just that, a style. It's taking a real life picture, and changing proportion to a look you want. The thing about this is, the people who do this professionally understand human proportion (most likely) and therefor know the results of modifying it and getting good results in a stylized manner.

Of course, im sure there are plenty of anime artists who are amazing, but suck at real life renders. Different strokes for different folks I suppose. I guess my point is, some people need the knowledge of realistic proportions, some people don't.

EDIT: Here is something for you to focus on. In the picture you simply copied that you mentioned looks really good, focus on the shadow. Notice how it follows her cheek? It kind of makes a bump where her cheek is. That adds tons of depth all by itself if you ask me.

Rowrsie · 12-20-2006 07:45 AM

Yeah. I've been told many times to NOT start with anime style. Realistic styles for the win! Learn that well, and THEN you can stylize and modify for anime or surreal or cartoon or comic or whatever. You have to learn how real life works when it comes to drawing or your other pics will fall far short of what they could be.

Anyway, here's that link I was talking about, it's free to register and you won't get spammed so just use a fake email address or something.

http://www.drawspace.com/

Lots of really nice tutorials, very indepth with LOTS of pictures.

mistformsquirrel · 12-20-2006 05:29 PM

Very cool >_<! Thank you so much <^_^>

And yeah >,<

I had an art teacher... how do I explain this <;_;>...

About 3 and a half years ago - I was in art classes, (I took 6 in total)

The problem boiled down to this: I wanted to draw anime, my teacher *HATED* anime/cartoons with a passion. So rather than try to explain that I needed skills in realistic stuff to draw more cartoony things... she just kind of said "WHY DO YOU DRAW THESE HORRIBLE CARTOONS?!?!"

<;_;> With motivation like that...

Hardly all her fault though - I wish I'd listened at least insofar as the information. I just shut it all out and I'm really paying for it now <_ _>;

Hopefully >.< I shall improve greatly in the next few weeks. There are some very realistic anime styles out there (Take Jin Roh for instance) and those are some of my favorites. (Obviously, I do enjoy the huge eyes too! But some of my favorite artwork is the grittier more realistic stuff)

And there's of course like I said >.< stuff that just doesn't suit that style <_ _>

I just wish I'd gotten the basics down way back when.

Anyways >_< I shall stop bothering you all, I am off to the drawing table! <T_T> Thanks again!!

*giant group hugs*

A Warrior's Friend: ID 335212 - Help Infernal save Valkyrie from Battle Maiden.
Above Mars Part 1: The Wellington: ID 159769 - Save Mars by destroying a monstrous battleship from the inside!
>.> My DA page, where I attempt to art.

Gideon_B · 12-20-2006 05:51 PM

Well I think it depends on the person. I started drawing cartoons when I was little then when I was in high school i started drawing comics and then realistic portraits.