Observe the cup.

It is GLORIOUS.

You think me mad, a mere cylinder, glorious? I have seen things in this cup that you probably wouldn't yet understand, you are so preoccupied with anime eyes and tits and cocks.

So vulgar the world we live in, most art is a mere puppet show for our egos. Even in the smallest most humble things there exists -wonders- if only you would look and see them.

Try then to master this or any cup since you know your shapes so well, show me you understand it, that you can comprehend it if it is so easy. Look through the cup, inside of it, around it, understand the values, the position, the balance.

Be humbled by it.

What is truth?

Not these. They don't even begin to scratch the surface.

There are giants out there, men and women with great minds, and they see the truth.

At 4/5/12 11:12 PM, Template88 wrote: mind blowing stuff.

Thou's mind hath seen the face of oblivion and hath imploded upon reading of ones very own scripture, I say to thee; thine be no goddess nor angel, yet, thine show knowledge that far surpass this piteous mortal, thou commend thine thread of scripture, for it far surpass what lay before it.

Here is my catch up work :P

Drawing the figure with shapes is something I've never been good at. I mean, I think understand shapes is super important, but when I try to use shapes, well, they the pose and figure often turn out looking really stiff. Like these. I usually kind of use my own 'invented' shapes, like I use a bean/flour sack shape for the torso, and sort of just 'eye ball' it form there most of the time. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. In all my years I've never found a method that works every time. I guess that is just part of it, keep redrawing it until it works.

Anyhow, my horrible attempts.

Damn, how do you get your cups to look so smooth and porcelain like?

At 4/6/12 10:33 AM, Opkluu wrote: Damn, how do you get your cups to look so smooth and porcelain like?

Use large soft brushes for smooth transitions. Ctrl-paint guy uses it often.

At 4/6/12 10:44 AM, Lintire wrote:

At 4/6/12 10:33 AM, Opkluu wrote: Damn, how do you get your cups to look so smooth and porcelain like?

Use large soft brushes for smooth transitions. Ctrl-paint guy uses it often.

Hm, alright, next time I'll try them out, thanks for the tip

At 4/6/12 11:08 AM, CypressDahlia wrote: I would recommend sticking to hard brushes, especially if you're just beginning to digitally paint. If you start off using soft brushes you risk muddying up values and losing a lot of definition in your forms. Hard brush is a method of building confidence and technique.

It comes down to preference eventually but yeah I'd say it's best to get good with hard brushes before you start using soft ones. Opkluu is probably skilled enough to adequately use soft brushes. I personally never use soft brushes (except to quickly make a bg gradient), I'm backing away from pressure-controlled opacity too. Again, that is mostly preference. the fact that you can see individual strokes gives art character imo.

Some more various examples of use of line and negative space (courtesy of the amazing 50watts)

The mighty Line, simple, elegant, the particle of choice for so many who would dare tread in the land of the visual arts.

In the Mouse-world
Peter Vos
Aron Bohrod

... the absence of something, Negative space.

Les Chants de Maldroror (ms-paint)
Julian Montague
Michael Fitzjames

awesome cup's

Mines handle is off portion and I couldn't figure out the depth just right.
we all have so much to learn from life.

At 4/6/12 02:48 PM, iceimp wrote: awesome cup's
Mines handle is off portion and I couldn't figure out the depth just right.
we all have so much to learn from life.

This is by no means a bad effort, but you seem to have fallen for what cypress-dahlia and I talked about earlier; overuse of the soft brush. Try using a hard brush to give some areas (right edge of the mug, handle) some more definition. I think that would help it look 3d a bit more. reflective (shiny) things tend to have harsh transitions/reflections as well as smooth gradient shading.

At 4/6/12 03:06 PM, J-qb wrote:

At 4/6/12 02:48 PM, iceimp wrote: awesome cup's
Mines handle is off portion and I couldn't figure out the depth just right.
we all have so much to learn from life.

This is by no means a bad effort, but you seem to have fallen for what cypress-dahlia and I talked about earlier; overuse of the soft brush. Try using a hard brush to give some areas (right edge of the mug, handle) some more definition. I think that would help it look 3d a bit more. reflective (shiny) things tend to have harsh transitions/reflections as well as smooth gradient shading.

Thanks for the advice, I'm giving it a shot however what is the best way for blending, should I just use opacity? The cup below was created using the hard round brush in photoshop but also using opacity of the brush to blend.

The easiest way is probably to combine soft and hard brushes; especially if you don't have a tablet. In this second pic; the edges of the cup aren't sharp. you should trim them with the eraser and use a 100% opaque hard brush for those.

YOU COULDN'T AFFORD COLLEGE
YOU TOOK A NIGHT CLASS
YOU MADE A CLAY DILDO
AND SHOVED IT UP YOUR ASS

Thought i'd participate instead of just talking and stuff

At 3/30/12 09:49 PM, BlackMist75 wrote: I stuck to 2D shapes. :| I suck at circles. No rulers or compass used

Oh well, its a start indeed :P

Man.. i wish i had a scanner or a tablet i would definitely do this
I admire 3D shapes alot,I sometimes just stare at my furniture or cups to see how wonderful thier shape is.
I started to practice gesture drawing, anyoneelse done that?

At 4/9/12 07:53 PM, GoodFang wrote: Man.. i wish i had a scanner or a tablet i would definitely do this

You can still do the exercises, you might learn something from them even if you don't share em.

I started to practice gesture drawing, anyoneelse done that?

done that, did you try the 60-second training tool from posemaniacs.com? pretty helpfull, and progress shows quite quickly. I'm guessing that's for a later lesson though.

I realize you cant draw a realistic body if you cant even draw a realistic sphere.
So here's some basic form practice from imagination.
They aren't good enough, so more coming up!
Does anyone have refs i could study?

At 5/8/12 09:34 AM, Flowers10 wrote: Does anyone have refs i could study?

Does they?

1 & 2

Been wanting to do this for a while but my theory work succcccccksss >:[
But i felt brave and did it ._.

Here it is! :(

FYI They take drugs..

This is a great topic idea, decided to challenge myself with 3 dimensions

Umm.....yeah,,

At 5/8/12 09:34 AM, Flowers10 wrote: Does anyone have refs i could study?

I found some!

Note the gradients in the shadows and light planes, also the top plane has no color tone to it.

moar

Flowers10
Im worried about people looking at your references and getting hung up on making the gradients of the light and shadow perfect and pretty and having them actually fail at understanding the shapes they create.

So it seems some people are confused about what they need to do to improve, that is ok I'll try to make it even more simple to figure out.

New artists have issues understanding how to make shapes look real. What you draw might look real to you because you made it but you don't understand how things actually look. To make things look real do your drawings need to have depth. What depth means more or less is making something look like its 3-d, that it isn't all flat like in parappa the rappa or south park.

1. To do this you must first be able to draw simple shapes in 3-d, from every angle you can imagine. If you cant, you cant go to the next step.
2.Step two is to be able to combine those shapes, and bend them WITHOUT THEM LOSING THEIR CONSISTENCY IN SHAPE if you cant, you cant go to the next step.
3.Step three starts getting complicated because you need to apply the rules of the human body to combine the shapes in a way that look like the way a human is formed. Humans are formed in a very specific way and have proportions and joints and funny little limbs. It helps if you think of it like you are drawing a robot. If you cant do this you cant go to the next step.
4.Being able to see shapes in 3-d without having to draw in the cones and squares and cylinders that you used to have to do to draw it right with depth, you can apply anatomy and all sorts of neat things like light and shadow to make your drawings look really good, and have the forms underneath make sense! BUT sometimes artists need to do this anyways to get what they are drawing perfect in perspective and stuff, so the things you learned before stay with you and you use them for as long as you draw!

Shout out to Bizarro Joe, Rogue Soul and Master Merol for the great examples.

I'm never going to get that good :(
Better try drawing the cup ._.