Ja-me's Originally Named Art Thread

[JA-ME]

Rather than continue lurking, as I have in the past, I have decided to create an art thread and quite possibly get in the habit of getting help and helping people. Not that lurking is bad, but I take a lot and never get to show what I've done with it. So in a way, this is to show what I've done with the loads of lurked help I've got (not that I've done all that much with it).

Things I know (read: think I know), but feel free to educate me further on:
Posemaniacs, and my lack of use of this helpful training
Art101
To never post the first thing you do in a new program
To keep it all in one thread
To search before creating another thread, such as for the elusive critique thread
That you shouldn't start out with anime/manga, but instead anatomy, which you then simplify/distort

Now that that mess is out of the way, here come the fun part (art). I have been recently been trying to get into drawing in black and white after reading all of Bone. Which is strange, because I used to hate b/w stuff. So I basically need help with these techniques, be they traditional and digital inking. Below is the first of this type I have done in a year, so it is a mess composition and technique-wise. Feel free to red-line it to death.

[Sockembop]

Welcome to the forum! Sorry, I suck at critique to be honest. I usually just provide encouragement instead. Or occasionally discouragement.

I like the contrast that comes from using black and white, but I think the balance is a little off in this pic. There is a lot of black and not so much white.

Also some of the shapes are shaded white, like the character in the robe, but some are drawn in a thin white outline, like the unfortunate chap on the ground. I think you should pick mostly one or the other and keep it consistent.

Anyways, good to have you on board. Look forward to seeing more of your stuffs.

[JA-ME]

At 8/25/11 08:12 PM, Sockembop wrote:

I like the contrast that comes from using black and white, but I think the balance is a little off in this pic. There is a lot of black and not so much white.

Also some of the shapes are shaded white, like the character in the robe, but some are drawn in a thin white outline, like the unfortunate chap on the ground. I think you should pick mostly one or the other and keep it consistent.

I understand the problem you see with the white outweighing the black, as well as the problems with the thin white lines. The rock in particular (in the first drawing) has too much "weight" in the image, with nothing as large to balance it out on the left. I'll try and avoid thin white lines in the future and see what results. Thanks for the help.

Below is what I might call an "advanced doodle" in that it has no composition, but has had more than 20 minutes spent struggling with details. The blanket gave me considerable trouble trying to figure out and I still don't like it. It serves only as an example of trying to digitally ink dark scenes, not as any "good" piece of art. The only reason I drew it was because of a very long and drawn out inside joke between me and a friend involving a would-be stalker, finding 2 pieces of glass in my morning pancakes and other shenanigans. If it still doesn't make sense, more explanation will defiantly not help.

One final Note: The hood is purely coincidental to being similar to the last drawing. I asked my friend what he wanted to look like, and he wanted a hood and stache.

[SnakeSkull]

I find your style to be quite nice.

Tell me, what program do you use?

[bigjonny13]

PANCAKES!!!

[JA-ME]

At 8/25/11 10:51 PM, TheSnakeSkull wrote: I find your style to be quite nice.

Tell me, what program do you use?

Thanks, and I tend to doodle/draw thumbnails on paper, which I then ink part of and scan to finish in Autodesk Sketchbook Pro or another program. If I am short on time, I'll skip the computer bit if it is something like a single comic panel and ink it in its entirety on paper. I might add screen tones in that case (if the rest of the panels on that page have screen tones). Other than that I use ToonBoom animate for vector lines if I really want them... I also have, but don't make much use of Corel Painter Essentials 4, Gimp, Photoshop Elements 6, Serif DrawPlusX2, Manga Studio (whatever the pro version is called) and.... MS paint. I got a lot of these at student discount prices and for free over time.

Sketchbook Pro is pretty good for sketching things, and can handle a large load of layers fairly well. Below is a is a heavily reffed sketch turned photo-trace "drawing" that I never finished. I did this all in sketchbook pro in a couple hours with the pencil tool.

Final note: The first image is now submitted here

[bikinigames]

Wow. Even for a sketch it's beautifully drawn. Good work :]