Newgrounds.com — Everything, By Everyone.

I was amazed that I finished this one in only one day! I decided to start practicing perspective character drawing. It's not as hard as I made it out to be in the beginning.

This one was collecting dust, so I decided to dust it off, finish it, doctor it, and post it! Shading is still tricky, especially with poses.

I'm quite frustrated. After taking a 4, soon to be 5, year hiatus, I realize that not only do I want to get back to do animation, I need to. My cartoons on YouTube already make me some decent dough, but I need so much more to have that be a full-time thing. I need to make more content, which brings me to my current dilemma. I know that if I'm going to be serious about my channel, I need to make content that's quality, but also relatively easy/fast to produce. I have two ideas that I'm stuck between.

The first is to make more kaiju cartoons about monsters beating the hell out of each other. That type of stuff is what's most popular on my channel and mainly why I've become as popular as I have, but I want to do better than I have in the past. I'm still working on my art skills as I speak. As it stands, the cartoons I would make now wouldn't look much different than those that I did 6 years ago. Even then, it took me months just to make an almost 2 minute animation.

My other idea is to put my love of metal to use. I thought about doing basically like a ZTV News, except for heavy metal news/reviews/culture, etc. It would be relatively easy to produce animation-wise, but I might need help with researching current metal events, interviews, keeping up with release dates, etc. On top of that, it might be a risk on my channel, as the majority of my audience isn't there to watch metal-related videos. I suppose I could attract the audience from forums and stuff.

So, what do you think? Am I mental? Am I thinking too hard? Are these good ideas? I'd appreciate any advice, feedback or suggestions. Also, if there is something you didn't understand, I'll gladly clarify for you. Thanks!

At 11/18/14 07:00 PM, odditiesbyangela wrote:

At 11/18/14 06:51 PM, DerekMetalhead wrote: After several months, I've finally got another drawing in! I feel like I'm getting even closer to my desired skill now more than ever!

You are doing way better now than from your first few posts. I would say that you have really been improving.

Thanks! I've been studying anatomy a lot from google, a 3d program I have, drawing lessons online and watching lots of anime. I still feel lacking in finding a good, reliable, consistent construction method for skeletons/mannequins.

After several months, I've finally got another drawing in! I feel like I'm getting even closer to my desired skill now more than ever!

At 9/18/14 12:27 AM, Celshaded wrote: I think the biggest factor is time. I'm really envious of the ability to just bust something out really quickly in live action. I love animation, but sometimes it can be downright agonizing to have everything take so long to produce.

True. Not to mention that, unless you're a good artist, you don't have to worry about drawing characters anatomically correct, in perspective, etc. in live-action. I guess it's about picking your battles. In my case, I'd rather do animation because although the labor is intensive and long, at least it'll make progress because you're the one working on it, no matter how long it takes you. There's no middle men to slow you down. This film of mine was supposed to be done 2 years ago. The majority of the time has been spent going through a revolving door of actors, crew, money, etc. It's supposed to be a 15 minute short. I could've animated it myself had I known it would've taken this ridiculously long. :/

I'm in the middle of shooting a live-action short. It's become the bane of my existence, to be honest. Dealing with people and their bullshit is very taxing. You can't get anything done without other people, and you're at the mercy of their schedules. Even if there's nothing stopping you from getting work done, because one person isn't available, you lose a whole day of work. Not to mention you're limited to physical reality, which means if you're an indie artist, you're dirt poor and you don't have access to much cool stuff or exotic locations. Plus, you have to worry about shooting as much as you can before you lose light or before someone has to bail, on top of everything already mentioned before.

I'm an animator at heart, and have been doing flash animation for 10 years. I thought that I would like live-action filmmaking, but trying it out for the past 5 years, I've found that it's just a never ending shit-storm of compromise and drama. Not to say that I can't work with others, but I've realized that I do my best work alone. At least when it's animation, as long as you can animate, you don't have to rely on anyone to complete the film visually. Plus, you can make it look however you want, and be anywhere you want. You can do any kind of action, fantasy, blood, etc. and make it look just like you envision it versus things going wrong on set or with the cast/crew/location/time, forcing you to have to totally butcher your vision and end up with something half-ass. As far as I'm concerned, when it comes to actors, I'd much rather deal with voice actors than live-action actors. At least all voice actors have to do is be in a booth and sound like the characters. They don't have to worry about being seen, so that would make getting their jobs done a lot easier than live-action. They don't even have to perform all at once. They can record their lines separate, making scheduling worlds easier. Performing would be as simple as reading the lines, they don't have to be waiting around nearly as long for equipment. With live-action, it's always "hurry up and wait", and I've made up my mind to back to animation.

What do you all think? Do the pros and cons of animation beat out the pros and cons of live-action? Are my assessments of live-action and animation accurate? Again, this is all based on what I've been through so far.

Here's another drawing of my original vampire character, Dragana. I feel like shading is still a challenge to get right.

Looks like this is my chance to put myself out there! I hope synthesized doom metal sits well.

http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/583305

My latest attempt. I feel like I'm getting the hang of form better.

Oops, I was addressing the OP, not you, Deadtuna.

At 4/20/14 01:24 AM, Deadtuna wrote:

I'm 18 years old. I'm currently writing an anime project about four teenagers battling an ancient evil entity. And I'm looking for an amateur animator that would be interested in collaborating on my project.

Seems like everyone wants to make an anime

I can vouch for that myself. There's just something about it all...

Deadtuna, I'd like to know more about your project. I'm an animator, but all my experience is in symbol/puppet animation, and I've been doing that for 10 years. I'd like to do traditional, but I have to learn more about it. On top of that, I'm not a fantastic artist, so I'm still learning how to draw professionally. Like you, I've got an anime idea I'd like to do eventually, however, I lack the helping hands and artistic mastery. So, maybe I can help others for now. In any case, I do hope you succeed with your project!

I recently did a foreshortening practice, as well as a sort of gesture drawing.

At 3/15/14 12:15 AM, johnyv47 wrote: I would suggest that instead of going for detail try going for variety in your artwork. what I mean is that instead of adding all the colours and background, try improving your drawing skills. only way to do that is to start your own sketchbook and sketching different concepts. for instance try different head or body shapes.

I know stealing artwork is not right but you can go through other artworks and try sketching them on your sketchbook, just for practice though. You've already improved a lot one way to check is to redraw your old drawing so I suggest you try doing that too. here's what I did after exactly one year:
http://www.newgrounds.com/art/view/johnyv47/progress
Keep practicing man, thats all we can do. plus are you using photoshop?

Thanks! I actually use Flash for everything. It's getting close to 1 year myself since I got serious about drawing. In fact, come May, it will be a year since my first art post here.

After looking at your post, I feel a little more confident in my ability to progress faster than snail-pace. Although, in my case, my endgame is to draw good enough to make my own cartoons, animes, etc. I'm also an animator (I have been for 10 years), but I hit a plateau years ago because I didn't want to learn how to draw professionally. In the past year or so, I've regained my passion for cartooning, and have been leveling up my artistic skills ever since. I'm hoping to release a new cartoon soon with my newfound abilities.

I'm trying something new. An anime/manga girl.

At 2/2/14 02:30 AM, hreyas wrote: "Who cares what's "feminine"?"but every one will surely comment on the androgynous look of the figure which is odd and looks pretty bad.Well Superheros like Miss Marvel Ultragirl dont have a broad shoulder yet they are so feminine and by the way i dont think so boobs is the only thing that matters a lot on a girl, the overall figure is what personifies the character.

Believe me, I'm trying very hard for my women to not look androgynous. I don't want to make the shoulders too narrow, for they will look too young, and I don't want to draw the hips too wide, for they'll look fat, or bloated, or something. For some reason, things go wrong when I go from mannequin form to the finished one. I'm having a hard time trying to get anatomy down and breaking things down into shapes. It's very frustrating when I think I have it, only to see later that I don't. It's been a trial-and-error deal since the beginning, being self-taught and all. I just wish I could figure it out so I can progress faster.

My latest attempt. I definitely feel more comfortable drawing people and like I'm close to getting things like anatomy and proportions down right. I obviously still need work. Feedback, tips, etc. are certainly welcome.

My latest drawing in my journey to get better. This is for an original vampire character of mine. Her name is Dragana.

Thanks to everyone for the support and advice! I now work on a new piece after every one that I post. I hope I can progress fast, although I know things like this can't be rushed. If I haven't said this before, my "endgame" is animation. I know how to animate in Flash just fine; I've been using it for about a decade now. My only problem is that I can't draw anything from my imagination very well. If I had professional level drawing skills, I'd be making flash animations left and right, for the most part. But, I don't have such skills...yet.

My latest attempt.

This is my latest attempt. I just finished it yesterday. I'm pretty happy with it, but I feel there's room for improvement. This is also my first drawing that I really tried hard with the shading.

This was a headshot of a vampire girl that I did last month.

My first attempt after studying drawing people (mostly girls) for a few days. This was about 5 months ago.

This thread will be to show my progress in my drawing skills and to see what everyone else thinks. For the past few months, I've been working on drawing better. In the past, all I could draw was Godzilla (and monsters), and even then I wasn't drawing them with any structure, I would just look at whatever it was I wanted to draw and try to do it in one shot. Now, I've actually been studying how to draw and it's made things easier. I now have the courage to draw people and I feel I've improved a lot. However, I still feel I'm not good enough and that I must continue learning. I would love to hear feedback on my work and perhaps some tips/guidance on improving.

Here's my contribution! I hope it's anime-ish. I've been getting back into/discovering more anime lately. A critique would be appreciated. I can't help but feel something's not right about it.

No worries, but asking people to check out your work to get you scouted is frowned upon. Your best bet is to make an art thread to showcase all your lovely work and get some feedback.

Don't forget you're going to need 4 pics to be scouted. Best of luck.

Got it! Thanks for your help!

Being an approved artist in the music portal, I thought it would make me an approved artist across the board in the other portals too. Guess I was wrong. In any case, I uploaded my first artwork if anyone wants to see it. I'm still finding my way around here, so I hope not to be too ignorant.

At 7/25/13 03:14 PM, midiwarlord wrote: Tags appear to be saved, but are not showing up publicly.

I've got the same problem. I guess I'm glad it's not just me.

I'm in the same boat. I've got 2 songs, but they don't show up in the audio portal. It seems that unless I go and "troll" my stuff on the forums, they'll just sit around in obscurity. By the way, I'm new to newgrounds, so I'm finding my way around.

At 5/28/13 05:52 PM, TheDaemonicPoet wrote:

At 5/28/13 05:23 PM, DerekMetalhead wrote: I'm honored! I'm also new to newgrounds, so I'm still trying to find my way around. I published a metal song of mine yesterday, but it doesn't seem to appear in the audio section, not even in the un-scouted section.

I checked it out man, and although it's not really my style, I found it pretty sick and consistent, I left a review for you. Welcome!

Thanks, and thanks for your review! To answer your question, no I'm not still working on it. Every now and then, I'll record a song and use it in one of my videos on YouTube. I can't play lead guitar. I can riff all day, but I can't shred for the life of me. It would be cool to, but I just find it hard to get into soloing and/or make any progress with it. I have a whole catalogue of original riffs in my head that keeps growing, though.