Dear digital artists on TW please help me not suck at art please.

D

Danno

Veteran XX
I enjoy drawing stupid little monsters like some idiot fanboy. Lately I only draw on the PC going back and forth between Photoshop CS5/Painter X3 using a drawing tablet.

All my drawings at the end of the day look like a shitty coloring book. I am having a hard time connecting the dots on how to blend colors and things end up looking like a mess and not neat an organized like professional artists create.

This is my most recent one.

g822aMF.jpg


I know it sucks and it is embarrassing. I try and fill shit up with lots of detail to make up for my lack of talent.

I did talk with an artist who posts stuff on youtube about how he went about painting his pictures. He even sent me a file of one of his paintings so I could break it down. I even made step my step jpeg's to try and figure it out. (see sample pictures of his art below) However I have been unable to recreate that nice textured look he makes.

http://i.imgur.com/cDVO8kF.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/lP4Cv5d.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/dXT55QC.jpg

Pyro sent me a link a while ago that had something about shading/blending but I accidentally deleted the message. What suggestions do you guys have for me? Youtube is either hit or miss because the videos go by so fast I miss certain points or details the artist is making.

Here is the actual PSD file if anybody is interested in messing with it. All the outline layers are separate from the color layers etc... (I think it is kind of a mess)

stupiddrawing

Thank you for reading my thread.

Sincerely,

- retard

ps

Spoiler
 
Last edited:
Not sure why you're beating yourself up and saying that is embarrassing. Better than 99% of the world can draw.

Of course there is tons of room for improvement, but if I could draw as well as that, I wouldn't be embarrassed by it.
 
I have been perusing the old "Drawing Thread" on tribalwar. I found some useful stuff n3gative posted a while back. I'll have to give some of that a try. See if it makes sense.
 
dont outline everything in hard black lines like a coloring book instead blend and shade things to show depth

the end
 
I don't do much painting unfortunately, I don't have any real advice to give
 
Do your linework on separate layer(s). Turn the layers off afterwards or experiment with blurs and other effects on the linework layer(s).
You can turn your linework into masks if you want as well.
 
Also, your windows are strange. If those are basically meant to be pod shaped little cubes then they're fine, but they look like windows with rooms that are exactly the same size. I would start by not placing dimensional lines in the windows that aren't lit for sure, since you really shouldn't see in. I'd probably just remove them altogether. My eye was immediately drawn to that and it looked really strange.

I'll piggy back on what others are saying though, I wouldn't be embarrassed at all. It's pretty good.
 
It's not that bad. You just need more practice to develop your technique. Keep drawing.
 
super quick paintover demo
gBlIDvD.jpg


Based on the examples of the other artist you've linked the main issue is there's not really any value in your forms. Your creature looks fairly flat; it's got tentacles, it's got bumps in its skin, bring some of that out with your rendering.

Form first, colour comes after.

this will be helpful.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tx-TwkMtPwc

Practice in greyscale on your values then add colour over that.
https://youtu.be/8LbQYuV6dng

Brush opacity will be your new best friend.

After that you can work on light sources, atmospheric perspective, focal point, and a ton of other things :kiss:
 
Last edited:
The main thing I'm noticing is that you don't consider lighting at all. You think of how the color of something is in full brightness daylight and then make it that color. In negatives example he made it night, it's dark, the source of light that then draws your eye (that he conveniently made in a golden section because of course) is coming from the monster. This takes into account quasi realistic lighting, atmosphere, and composition all in one

One of the best things you can watch for your particular roadblock is this: The Gnomon Workshop - Practical Light and Color

Also the paint in a limited 4 color b&w palette like suggested is a great idea. My professional concept artist friends do that on every painting. Limit your palette.
 
I was totally with that guy until he made a shitty metal frame and put on acid washed skinny jeans
 
The advice an art teacher gave me was that every artist draws 99 bad ones before their first good one. Anyone can learn to draw, but most people get discouraged and give up before they get to the good one in every hundred.

I think his point was not to worry and become self-conscious about drawing bad art, it's the cost paid to make good art.


PS: I never became an artist, I gave up around #58 or so.
 
quick d&b with a big soft brush. you'd get more detail if you went smaller and spent some time on it.

vMw3im0.jpg
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top