Drakena's Fantastical Sketchbook

[SlasherCass]

Hello, I am Cassie. What a pleasure to meet you. I am creating this in the hopes of receiving some feedback & some tips, mainly in the area of coloring. I am currently working with my fiancee on a little project, which actually isn't that little. So first I will be posting mainly some character sketches.

I want to post a sketch almost every day, even just little ones, mainly to keep me in my sketchbook constantly. Yay goals!

Anyways I'm hoping to get some great tips on coloring here, I generally sketch things out on paper then I color it digitally. I'm trying to work on human anatomy a lot more, as I tend to draw creatures most of the time.

So, onward to the arts!!
(Note: this first one I have started coloring, & I have made several tweaks in some things that don't look right, such as the mouth. But please, comments/critiques definitely welcome.)

[SlasherCass]

Here is that last one, but with some color. I'm just trying to figure out the general coloring I want, also this one has the lines, since it's largely unfinished, and I also can't decide if I want lines in the final result or not (If I can get the coloring down better I won't need or want them is what I figure)...Mainly I am really looking for tips on coloring, because I realize I'm just not very good with digitally coloring, and I want to get better. Way better.

[gayhobbit]

Hello and welcome! Doing a Dungeons & Dragons type like project, yeah? Good times, I love seeing things in that sort of fantasy genre. That's a Tiefling yeah? I hadn't meddled in D&D in years, and years of years within years, I'd forgotten the race name, but then there's Google.

I have some input on the sketch, and to begin, the body proportions are not bad, but the arms are disproportionate and awkward looking, and the walk does not look natural. On a side note, I do like the costume design. The face I see you definitely struggle with the most, because it's the most disproportional. So much so, the only thing that's going to help you is to use your daily sketch time to draw portraits for a while. Particularly practice expressions. It's not as fun as drawing from your head, but definitely more useful as a learning experience. What I use to do to make it more interesting for myself, is I would pause on random places in music videos, because musicians almost always have strange and fun expressions when singing.

Your color choices look very nice to me, there's nothing too harsh or overbearing about the pallet. Highlights will definitely do good in bringing forth the detail. Don't be afraid to use more intense shadows to bring out the form. There are many digital painting tutorials out on the net and you'll find quite a bit if you use even Google by simply typing coloring tutorialin the image search engine. I myself usually like to start with a dark base and bring out the form with highlights.

Keep it up!

[SlasherCass]

At 3/8/13 11:25 PM, gayhobbit wrote: I have some input on the sketch, and to begin, the body proportions are not bad, but the arms are disproportionate and awkward looking, and the walk does not look natural. On a side note, I do like the costume design. The face I see you definitely struggle with the most, because it's the most disproportional.

Thanks so much for the input, I was trying to use a more creative pose than just, standing there...It so doesn't look right but I couldn't bring myself to change it. As for the face, yeah definitely my biggest weakness! After I drew this I've been trying to study & draw faces more, & I really love your idea about music videos, tons of interesting stuff there :) I'll post all my practice sketches that I'll do! I'm definitely going to recreate this character at a later date, after doing some more studies.

But yes it's D&D related, basically drawing my friends' characters, and then I'll be working on creating a comic sort of thing (not cartoony though)...But that won't be for a while. I'm really trying to use this opportunity to work on proportions, faces, movements & the like.

[SlasherCass]

At 3/8/13 11:25 PM, gayhobbit wrote: Keep it up!

By the way, so following you now! Love your style :D

[SlasherCass]

It is a good day. Ran some errands so this is all I've done today, but I'll go ahead & post some other things from my sketchbook as well. I decided to attempt a proper proportion drawing, but I suppose it's my fault for not using a ruler, since the paper never seems big enough. Also them tits...are terrible, lines everywhere :) oh well.
Worked on some mouths. Did some "blind contour drawing" with that woman's face, then tried to fix up the things that I could.

I worked in pen because I explicitly didn't want to erase with these, just force myself to do some quick studies without spending tons of time on one thing.

[SlasherCass]

This is another character, Shardana. I'm actually pretty pleased with how it turned out, except for the legs & feet, just couldn't decide what I wanted to do with them. The quality's a bit meh because I haven't scanned it yet, this was just a pic taken with my phone. But for here it will do.

[SlasherCass]

Drew this guy a while ago, kind of a recurring creature for me now since I like the design.

[SlasherCass]

Him again, in a different style.

[SlasherCass]

I tend to draw things that aren't really anything in particular, just some strange mishmash almost. So, a horse or deer like creature with the flexibility of a cat? Gave up on that back leg, just couldn't get it to not look like it was facing inward.

[SlasherCass]

Last one today, just the full view of the guy on the upper right of the last picture. Attempting a different perspective shot with some foreshortening.

[maficmelody]

Cool sketches, loving the designs.

[SlasherCass]

At 3/9/13 08:07 PM, maficmelody wrote: Cool sketches, loving the designs.

Thank you! I'll be posting something every day, for motivation to improve.

[SlasherCass]

Quick sketch of my dog, Trixie. Trying to pretend that she's not old & pudgy :P

She is a total mutt by the way.

[gayhobbit]

At 3/11/13 01:29 AM, drakena wrote: Quick sketch of my dog, Trixie. Trying to pretend that she's not old & pudgy :P

She is a total mutt by the way.

She's quite a beautiful girl! Nice work on that body, she appears playful. Your creature designs are fun, but I particularly enjoy that armor concept up there, with the maul.

I see you're also looking at head count there. That's a very useful tactic for getting proportion right. Here's a guide to better help you with placement: Link

Not everyone in the world is exactly eight heads high. People who are shorter may be less, and those who are taller may be more, but it's a good general count, and I wouldn't take that all into account right away.

[SlasherCass]

At 3/11/13 01:56 AM, gayhobbit wrote: She's quite a beautiful girl! Nice work on that body, she appears playful. Your creature designs are fun, but I particularly enjoy that armor concept up there, with the maul.

I see you're also looking at head count there. That's a very useful tactic for getting proportion right. Here's a guide to better help you with placement: Link

Not everyone in the world is exactly eight heads high. People who are shorter may be less, and those who are taller may be more, but it's a good general count, and I wouldn't take that all into account right away.

Thanks for that link, yeah that head count drawing was done in my attempt to remember the different key points, haha...that turned out well :P
I was trying to pay extra attention to make the armor for that character, as I felt that her proportions & facial features had turned out decently. And thank you for checking my stuff out, it's a nice motivation!!

[SlasherCass]

This is the dwarf, not that pleased with his design, I'll get to redrawing him soon enough. Mainly those legs are way too thin, lol.

[SlasherCass]

This is just some guy, how about "Occult Priest #1".

But at the least there is a running them in my humanoid characters! Leetle legs! When you identify a problem you can start to fix it ^.^

[SlasherCass]

One more, it's the little guy in the lower right corner of the last pic. I don't know his name, but my brain kept seeing and creating all his different little mannerisms. He's a mailman, but on a galactic level.

[Moors]

Nice sketches! Try working a little more on your line control as the shakeyness is letting them down a little bit at times. Confidence of line can be a hard thing to master, but it'll you out in the long run. Keep up the good work!

[SlasherCass]

At 3/11/13 11:48 PM, Moors wrote: Nice sketches! Try working a little more on your line control as the shakeyness is letting them down a little bit at times. Confidence of line can be a hard thing to master, but it'll you out in the long run. Keep up the good work!

Hello & thank you!! They do get a bit shakey. I think I'll work on doing contour drawings a bit more, that might help.

[SlasherCass]

Alrighty so here's Shiva. A drow. Her companion is Fang. Just for some flavor before I (eventually) color it, her bow is flaming & her armor is white-ish. & fur trim, ooooooo...Because who doesn't enjoy wearing the skins of dead creatures.

I was trying to attempt a more interesting pose than just 'standing there' so I figured up on her toes would also appeal to her personality & adventurousness.

[SlasherCass]

This is that same guy from several posts ago, I am drawing him repeatedly because I've never really tried drawing one character several times in different poses & attitudes. Here he is relaxed & happy.

On a side note, I punched my knuckles raw today! Well, my goal was bloody, but they were getting pretty scrubbed off so I stopped, lol. Good times.

[SlasherCass]

Here is he again, cocky & fierce. At least that's what I was going for.

[SlasherCass]

And this is a saaaaad pose :c

soooooo saaaaaaad.

And with that, I bid everyone a good evening. Ciao!

[KiwiSundae]

You seem to be able to draw animals quite well...Humans? Eh...Not so much...This is based on observation (not saying I can do better).

[SlasherCass]

At 3/13/13 11:21 PM, KiwiSundae wrote: You seem to be able to draw animals quite well...Humans? Eh...Not so much...This is based on observation (not saying I can do better).

I appreciate it, but I don't think this is "constructive criticism". But yes, clearly my humanoids need work which is why I'm trying to fix that by posting all of my not-so-great work here, and try to make it something I work on weekly.

On another note all these so far were drawn with no references; I am going to work on using references & a goal of mine is to be able to draw realistic proportioned bodies without an absolute need for a reference.

[SlasherCass]

I headed to posemaniacs.com today, because I wanted to do the 30-second figure drawings. I shall post what I did, I have 4 pages.

I don't know if I was really successful or not, but this will be a good starting point for me to show myself if I am improving.

[SlasherCass]

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[SlasherCass]

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