GRcade Illustrator Club

don't mind me just posting some more stuff

Been a while since I've painted digitally (aside from my digital dalliance with VR oil painting):


I'm pretty happy with it, I think.

WIP sketch of my next portrait:

You've got a particular style with your characters that stands out, OSC. It appears that you're really getting into and enjoying drawing at the moment. Good stuff!

My best tip would be to draw eyes with 100% tone. You can add defining lines later, but lines tend to have the effect of cutting out specific parts and drawing attention to their shape, when the human face isn't really made up of individual shapes. Human eyes feature almost no lines, indeed most of the front profile has almost none. Consider when someone's eyes are closed, what does that look like? It's a complex tonal map of contours. Another objective thing is that eyes can be darker than skin or surrounding areas; this is because they are sunk and only catch light in a few angles. People have a tendency to avoid shading eyes, when they are almost always in shade.

Even anime eyes observe this principle; they're almost never drawn all the way around:



The line is so slight towards the edge of the eye that it is virtually non existent.

As humans when thinking of an eye we tend to exaggerate their size by about 50-100%, because most people focus on the eyes when looking at or thinking of, or even recalling someone. Areas like that surrounding the eye, eyelashes, brow, tear duct, temple, cover more area than the eye itself. When looking at an overall human face, the eyes themselves are the smallest features. Hence it's a focus point; then the nose, the mouth, ears and so-on.

While drawing dimensions or the shape of the head is good, I tend to actually start with the eyes (which isn't very good practice) or even the nose; and often the brow, temple, working towards the cheeks. This has the side effect of the face working outwards ending up too big, or flat, but if you remain accurate enough, with these elements I find can create you a face without even necessarily bothering to draw half the rest of it. Indeed, it might be mostly covered by hair or shadow anyway.

Another trick I've pulled many times is it is considerably easier to draw a face from a quarter point angle than front on. Why? You're drawing less face, and suddenly there are lines! The tone and structure is far more obvious. Try it. Do two side by side and you might be surprised which one seems most authentic. Also, we almost never gaze upon a person as they might in a mirror, for example. Humans are timid and tend to avoid face to face contact, unless they are either forced to do so, or very comfortable with one another. Needless to say, we move around in 6 axes, it's worth experimenting with angles to see if something else has "more information" in it do draw from.

Here's two random examples from Google search that highlight the eye is quite a complex 3D group of contours





The second one is an example of tone mapping. Drawing contours around areas of significant tonal shift. You can do so with very light pencil strokes in a lighter grade or similar and then literally fill in the tone later or on a separate layer. This way you "map out" all the tonal areas and start to create sort of 3D mesh of the face before then focusing on specific details, but it's a good idea to try and draw the face as a whole, as focusing on specific elements again tends to lead to a drawing that's stitched together or has adjunct or disjunct parts.

This is all based on my experience and some comments in the past from different teachers etc.

Green Gecko wrote:ye-olde-wall-o'-text

Yikes! All that for a quick sketch I'll be painting over and covering up entirely... (and the other drawings I did before I now realize)

It's all good advice though (some of which I knew, but haven't put into practice yet - the reminder to do so is appreciated!), and I'm grateful for it.

Some reactionary thoughts when I thought you were just talking about the most recent sketch:
The eyes are big, but only because I chose to make them big. There are times to make careful and realistic studies, but I'm making this to have fun. I'll settle for careful when it comes to the painting stage.
It is front on... just like the reference (the reference is actually a few degrees off from being front on, but that's hard to capture). Of course I don't necessarily have to view the reference as holy and unchangeable. I'm allowed to make adjustments, and should probably make a habit of doing that.

jawa_ wrote:You've got a particular style with your characters that stands out, OSC. It appears that you're really getting into and enjoying drawing at the moment. Good stuff!

Thanks. Yeah, I've ignored this for too long. I'm really glad I'm getting back into it. I'm having fun and not worrying so much about how far off I am from being "good enough". I'm good enough right now, and I will make progress at my own pace.

Well bear in mind I have read but not posted since Erkall around May 17. Sorry I wrote authoritatively but I didn't mean to actively criticise your work.
The trouble there is it's easy to read every word I have and map that directly to the last image you shared, which isn't what I was aiming for. It's obvious you're targeting a certain style, sorry I hadn't acknowledged that as Jawa already wrote that. I was thinking far more of my own work. There's no right or wrong.
Think of it as me just randomly writing a book, it's a bit "I would do it this way" and it's a poor alternative to myself just going and drawing something, which I rarely do giving me little credit to comment. For that you deserve much more credit.

I barely draw anything and I express what I intend to do or feel I know well by writing excessive amounts. It's a problem I had all the way through education because I wasn't motivated enough to actually do it, so my portfolio is a pretty thin, all things considered;- it's far out of proportion to the general day to day artworking I do for commercial intents when I probably would much rather be doing something like you are doing; hence engaging with it.

To be honest what you wrote didn't really read like direct criticism, but I just thought "what else could it be?" and didn't think too much about it.
But even if it wasn't: I still appreciate it, whatever the intent was. There's good value in tips from experience. If only taking it in and changing how you do things wasn't so damn scary.

anyone ever tried drawing scenes from a book? while deliberately trying not to imitate any other interpretation. it's fun

That bottom one a Discworld book?

WIP of my latest painting. I think I hate hair now:

OldSoulCyborg wrote:That bottom one a Discworld book?

yes

Calling this done for now:


I feel like I've learned some things about digital painting over the last month. Such as: it's kind of hard, actually. Who'd have thought?

The Watching Artist wrote:(paging Matt...)

^^^ I just noticed this on your autosig... it feels reflective... bright *and* dull... a sense of something that was busy but is now empty... I like it! Is it a new piece? I rushed to the online vault but couldn't see it there.

jawa_ wrote:

The Watching Artist wrote:(paging Matt...)

^^^ I just noticed this on your autosig... it feels reflective... bright *and* dull... a sense of something that was busy but is now empty... I like it! Is it a new piece? I rushed to the online vault but couldn't see it there.

I wish it was mine. Its a small detail of a painting I went to see last year.
WARNING NSFW/PEOPLE WHO DON'T LIKE WEIRD gooseberry fool

Not updated my site in absolutely ages btw

The Watching Artist wrote:I wish it was mine. Its a small detail of a painting I went to see last year.
WARNING NSFW/PEOPLE WHO DON'T LIKE WEIRD gooseberry fool

Crikey! That is quite a... uhm... thought-provoking piece! It sure is a small part of it that you picked out! Thanks for sharing, dude.

The Watching Artist wrote:...Not updated my site in absolutely ages btw

Have you got some new stuff to put onto it some time, Matt? It'd be great to see any items that you've been working on.

I've been experimenting with crosshatching over the past few days - just doing a couple of tone gradients and trying to draw a cup, bottle, sphere etc. When I'm doing it on paper it looks pretty good, even when just doodling with a biro. However when I tried it on my Wacom I couldn't gauge where the pen was on the screen, so I couldn't fill out the edges of the shape properly. I have often found this with using a graphics tablet - I really like the layering and effects (and undo button ) that digital drawing gives you, but I sometimes feel that if I just got colouring pencils and a scanner life would be much easier!

Are there any tips to counteract this issue, or is it just git gud?

I would say perhaps try drawing with your arm rather than your wrist.

You can also try practising on an upright canvas / drawing board or easel again with your arm which helps detach from small wrist movements to the pen tip only.

You might find it easier if you use the tablet on a tilt, because then it is more closely resembling spatially the flat screen.

I think adapting to a tablet after 2 years at college doing that made it easier.

You can also enable the precise cursor in Photoshop which is a little easier to see where the mark will be. It's in preferences.

Overall, focusing on the image and not the detail will improve your technique and compositions in various ways. You are always working on a whole image, not tiny parts that comprise the whole. We pick up this habit from things like copying, join the dots, paint by numbers, grid replication exercises etc.

Drawing from imagination also helps; because you are then doing almost the same thing. The image is in your head, and you're reproducing that. That's the reverse of your motions being replicated on a separate screen. Your mind is the screen.

It is quite difficult to achieve the spatial mapping if it is smaller than A4 size tablet too, I find. Smaller tablets are fine for smaller areas and details.

You can adjust how the tablet is mapped to the screen area in the Wacom preferences too (although this may only be for the Intuos range, I'm not sure - I have an Intuos3, Wacom One and Bamboo Folio - bluetooth pen capturing thing).

Generally, you should be focusing on the marks you are making, not the instrument. That small change to your technique can make a big difference to accuracy and the range of gestural marks you will be able to make. It also generally improves curves, arcs and other types of lines. Unfortunately, because of the way we are taught to write, and with people more generally fixating on the thing the are working with, we tend to focus on one detail or mark at a time, whereas in a picture, a single mark rarely has much value. As making specific marks becomes natural, we don't need to do that any more, but we hold onto the habit. Basically we end up drawing a bit wrong because we spend so much time learning to write. The mind naturally has a tendency to focus on a very tiny area when it is doing focused, detailed things, including reading and writing. But that's not a very good approach to creating a much larger impression of something we, ultimately, "see".

Interestingly, this fixation on the writing or drawing instrument exacerbates the abstraction between the instrument and the surface, and the image, when the separation of the latter - in this case - is introduced. If you focus on your body, and more of your body and not the stylus while relating that to the image you see, the abstraction gets "smaller". The gap begins to close.

I'm convinced it's mostly that which people struggle with when using a separate tablet/screen/image of their work. They were probably always focusing on the implement and a very small area of what they were doing all along, which is extremely difficult when you essentially sever these components. It's the same transition when drawing or painting large format, vertically. It becomes a full body exercise and our spatial awareness changes.

It's also kind of interesting to note how children draw. They draw everywhere, on everything, and they use their arms and full body to do it. Sometimes they draw with both hands. Often they paint with their whole hands or even other body parts.

We have to unlearn this aspect of drawing to close the gap, ironically because it was already very closed to begin with (except it wasn't;- we learnt to do that too).

The Watching Artist wrote:

jawa_ wrote:

The Watching Artist wrote:(paging Matt...)

^^^ I just noticed this on your autosig... it feels reflective... bright *and* dull... a sense of something that was busy but is now empty... I like it! Is it a new piece? I rushed to the online vault but couldn't see it there.

I wish it was mine. Its a small detail of a painting I went to see last year.
WARNING NSFW/PEOPLE WHO DON'T LIKE WEIRD gooseberry fool

Not updated my site in absolutely ages btw

That's a cool painting. There's a hint of Bosch in there. Also, I guessed the subject matter before doing an image search which made me feel very clever.