City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

What do you.....

Crestent

By Crestent,
Posted on: 2008-06-03 22:20 in Multi-Media Fan Creations

 

Posted

Out of curiosity, what do you think I should try to improve on in my art next?
<ul type="square">[*]Females, Not enough Va Va Voom [*]Hair, It needs to look more natural [*]Backgrounds/Scenery , face it man the same old white background is kinda bland [*]Angle, it's time we saw from behind, above, below and what ever other angles there are [*]Animals, time to go on to non human creatures [*] Facial Expressiongs, we want to see more smiling, anger, and other emotions[/list]

Crestent lvl 50 Mind/Emp Controller http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...cGallary-1.jpg
http://crestent.deviantart.com/
http://www.creyindustries.com/viewhero.php?id=21809

 

Posted

I'd say, start mixing up the angles.

Also, try multiple people, action poses, etc.


Those would be my suggestions. Not that you don't rock at stuff now... cos you do.


"City of Heroes. April 27, 2004 - August 31, 2012. Obliterated not with a weapon of mass destruction, not by an all-powerful supervillain... but by a cold-hearted and cowardly corporate suck-up."

 

Posted

I think you're pretty good in all those areas but like Soul maybe some different angles or perspectives to mix things up. Backgrounds are nice for putting a character in a setting so that's always nice to see, too.

And GRR! at the forums, can't ever seem to do anything but a quick reply and lucky if that goes through, GRR!

 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
Out of curiosity, what do you think I should try to improve on in my art next?
<ul type="square">[*]Females, Not enough Va Va Voom [/list]

[/ QUOTE ]

It seems to me there's been a bit of a backlash against aggressively-objectified depictions of the female form lately. There's been more call for the depiction of intelligence and competence and common sense in women. (It seems plausible the strong push to depict the non-supermodel image of Hillary Clinton as a capable leader for the free world has a lot to do with it.)

I would suggest that it's still viable to look to improve your female form skills, but instead of the Va Va Voom factors, focus more on realistic female forms that still look capable of putting their minds towards achieving physical feats. You could review subjects such as Amanda Waller, or various makeover show subjects/hosts like Paige Davis on Trading Spaces, or various athletes like the current French Open tennis contestants or the upcoming Beijing Olympics participants.

Still, this wouldn't be my first choice as to what you should pursue.

[ QUOTE ]

<ul type="square">[*]Hair, It needs to look more natural [*]Backgrounds/Scenery , face it man the same old white background is kinda bland [*]Angle, it's time we saw from behind, above, below and what ever other angles there are [/list]

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think any of these require intensive focus at this time. It's fairly straightforward to introduce easy and slight improvements to each in parallel to whatever else you focus on.

Hair can be slightly improved by treating it more like a shiny fabric, and getting the shine highlight more or less correct.

Backgrounds can be slightly improved by adding a single geometric shape to in part frame the foreground layout. If you review Juggertha's deviantart site you should see several examples where he plays around with this technique. When Juggie first started doing this his art immediately took on another dimension of appeal, (and it was already pretty awesome).

Angle and layout can be played with in a narrow field to nice effect. Extreme angles are more often ugly than not. But basic training exercises in this area can consist of drawing towers of stacked simple tables as if from slightly above or slightly below (or both).

[ QUOTE ]

<ul type="square">[*]Animals, time to go on to non human creatures [/list]

[/ QUOTE ]

An intriguing idea. This can indeed be a valuable avenue of research and improvement. However, these kinds of subjects tend to lead you to avenues of expression far away from these boards, and I for one don't want to lose you.

[ QUOTE ]

<ul type="square">[*] Facial Expressiongs, we want to see more smiling, anger, and other emotions [/list]

[/ QUOTE ]

This gets my vote. Detailed and expressive facial expressions seems to be the next trend in art and animation. There are a host of recently released and upcoming games touting dynamic facial animation and expression as exciting innovations (Street Fighter IV is one example). Arguably, cinema lately has been doing more closeups and less symbolism for conveying character feelings.

I might suggest reviewing the Justice League work of Keith Giffen (with J.M. DeMatteis) for a good example of superheroes with attention to detail on facial expressions.

But in any case, any of the options you pursue will probably work out ok. What matters is that you love what you do with it.

 

Posted

Animals! Tigers in particular.
Always a good subject!

 

Posted

Goats and fishes are not ammals!!!
They goats and fishes!

 

Posted

My suggestion would be to focus your efforts on angles and facial expressions. These elements can help a piece become tons more dynamic by adding depth, emotion and action. The more extreme angles will help you work on body perspective and are good for practice. But keep in mind that the change in perspective doesn't have to *too* extreme...a subtle shift in perspective from front-center can do wonders.

Regarding the other choices...

[u]Animals[u]
Animals can be pretty fun 'cause they have completely different anatomies to play with and are a completely new challenge. However if your art focus is going to be more along the lines of character portraits, you don't need to focus on this one for quite some time. Though if you are thinking about integrating some of the more animalistic characters that float around these parts into your art queue (*looks at Rowr* ), you could start looking to the animal kingdom to get some ideas for fur/scale patterns, claws, etc.

[u]Hair and Females[u]
I don't think you need to really make these concentrations per se. Just keep doing what your doing and just maintain a good balance of the number of male and female works. I think the improvements on hair and the female form will follow naturally.

[u]Background[u]
I say concentrate more on your figure drawing and save the background work for later. I personally feel that when you're focusing on character portraits, your foundation is going to be the human form. Background work looks best when an artist is completely comfortable with your drawing of the human form so they can convey how that human form relates to a 3-dimensional world on a 2-dimensional surface. If you're bored of the stark white backgrounds, you can always draw in a quicky horizon line and start focusing on a little shadow work to imply that the white space is 3-dimensional space. For the shadow work, it doesn't have to be a full shadow of the body...the little shadows (say for example, the tiny shadow that a body part will cast when resting on an object) can also help add some weight to your figures and help give them a more 3-dimensional feel.

 

Posted

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Solid advice has already been layed down by a lot of folks here already - so definately go with that.

On the whole you really cant go wrong if you draw from life.
Photograph's or having a friend pose or going to a near-by park with a sketchpad and just drawing whatever you see will always make you better.

I always just wanted to draw action, or monsters and bewbs ( and still do lulz) until someone pointed out to me a great trick: Instead of drawing "a hand" or "a gun" try to draw the space and shape an object occupies.

That really got me thinking less about subject matter and more about capturing life itself, which is essentially what we're all trying to do as artists: create the illusion of life.

At least thats really become my goal lately.

I hope this helps - best of luck

 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
I always just wanted to draw action, or monsters and bewbs ( and still do lulz) until someone pointed out to me a great trick: Instead of drawing "a hand" or "a gun" try to draw the space and shape an object occupies.

That really got me thinking less about subject matter and more about capturing life itself, which is essentially what we're all trying to do as artists: create the illusion of life.

At least thats really become my goal lately.

I hope this helps - best of luck

[/ QUOTE ]

That's gonna help me at least, I know that much. It's an interesting way to look at things. Definitely gonna have to try it out.

@Johnstone & @Johnstone 2
ediblePoly.com
All my characters

 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I always just wanted to draw action, or monsters and bewbs ( and still do lulz) until someone pointed out to me a great trick: Instead of drawing "a hand" or "a gun" try to draw the space and shape an object occupies.

That really got me thinking less about subject matter and more about capturing life itself, which is essentially what we're all trying to do as artists: create the illusion of life.

At least thats really become my goal lately.

I hope this helps - best of luck

[/ QUOTE ]

That's gonna help me at least, I know that much. It's an interesting way to look at things. Definitely gonna have to try it out.

[/ QUOTE ]

It really works.
I cant take credit for that way of thinking - my senior-year art teacher dropped that pearl of wisdom into my hat one day.

Ironic that I incorporate it into my approach now since I was kicked out of his class and high-school itself not long afterwards =)

 

Posted

Hi Crestent,
This is BattleWraith posting on a friend's account. I think you should focus on 2 things:

1. Anatomy. This is the foundation for figurative art and something you will be learning for as long as you continue doing art. If the anatomy of your figure is incorrect, the picture will suffer no matter what else you do. I'd start with heads. Do straight on, then profile, and then 3/4 view. After you've learned those, start with more complicated angles and expressions.

2. rendering values. Rendering forms through the use of light and dark is something essential that artists need to learn. If your line drawing lacks accurate shading, the illusion of depth in the picture will fall apart. And you should really have a good grip on things like defining your lightsource, placing shadows, rendering bounced/reflected light (radiosity), etc. before you get into color, which will complicate things by adding warm/cool colors, saturated/desaturated color, etc.

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