This is my first post on Newgrounds so I'm honestly terrified. I'm looking to get some feedback on the image below. I know the background is very plain, but I'm not worried about background art at this time. While I am looking for general feedback, my biggest concern is fur. I looked up tons of different tutorials and guides but could not for the life of me figure out how to draw fur. Thanks in advance!
It's pronounced Drag-uh-vor
At 10/15/21 05:40 PM, Dragavoir wrote: This is my first post on Newgrounds so I'm honestly terrified. I'm looking to get some feedback on the image below. I know the background is very plain, but I'm not worried about background art at this time. While I am looking for general feedback, my biggest concern is fur. I looked up tons of different tutorials and guides but could not for the life of me figure out how to draw fur. Thanks in advance!
Welcome
Nothing to be scared about here. Even the very worst person on internet is just a paper tiger.
Generally it is good to start out with getting the general form of what you're drawing, specially when you don't have a model or reference.
If the background doesn't add anything, crop down the image to what is essential. A big empty background can have a purpose i.e. if it is there to emphasize that a character is feeling small and lonely, but generally your better off without it.
Fur is just shaggy hair.
3 steps to learn drawing
People often want to jump to 3 without passing 1 and 2 and the lot of drawing part. It will not work that well.
See my profile page for link to showroom
Well this is certainly not what I was expecting on my first post. Thank you so much!! This is great advice and you even made your own version of my drawing. I'll try to follow your steps next time or maybe see if I can adapt what I have already. Again thank you!
It's pronounced Drag-uh-vor
I have been working on a new version of this drawing using the previous suggestion and here's what I have so far for the draft. I'm not entirely sure if I am doing this correctly. Please let me know if you think I should change anything.
It's pronounced Drag-uh-vor
At 10/17/21 11:02 AM, Dragavoir wrote: I have been working on a new version of this drawing using the previous suggestion and here's what I have so far for the draft. I'm not entirely sure if I am doing this correctly. Please let me know if you think I should change anything.
Fleshed out the draft a bit more. Again, let me know if I should make any changes. Clearly there has been a big improvement though.
It's pronounced Drag-uh-vor
At 10/17/21 12:01 PM, Dragavoir wrote:At 10/17/21 11:02 AM, Dragavoir wrote: I have been working on a new version of this drawing using the previous suggestion and here's what I have so far for the draft. I'm not entirely sure if I am doing this correctly. Please let me know if you think I should change anything.Fleshed out the draft a bit more. Again, let me know if I should make any changes. Clearly there has been a big improvement though.
Looks fine too me.
See my profile page for link to showroom
Finally finished this piece. I think its greatly improved since my first post. However there are still some things I think could be improved. For instance, the button eye seems very flat. Additionally, I wasn't sure how to add more layers of fur to the face. Again feedback is appreciated! Hopefully someday I'll be able to post to the art section of Newgrounds.
It's pronounced Drag-uh-vor
I've started on my next piece and have completed the draft below. So far, it doesn't feel right to me. Perhaps I shouldn't be drawing things that are so complex with my limited skills. However, I feel that something about the pose is off. I am hoping that I can get some feedback on how to improve the pose and make it feel more natural but any other feedback is also appreciated. Feel free to suggest some feedback for my last piece too. Thank you!
It's pronounced Drag-uh-vor
At 11/2/21 11:05 AM, Dragavoir wrote: I've started on my next piece and have completed the draft below. So far, it doesn't feel right to me. Perhaps I shouldn't be drawing things that are so complex with my limited skills. However, I feel that something about the pose is off. I am hoping that I can get some feedback on how to improve the pose and make it feel more natural but any other feedback is also appreciated. Feel free to suggest some feedback for my last piece too. Thank you!
You would probably want to have neck-body-tail in one flowing line.
Dinosaurs can be good references for dragon anatomy.
See my profile page for link to showroom
The more I look at it, the worse it gets. I suppose I knew this would be a bad idea from the beginning. Made some progress on the dragon, but obviously, it doesn't look great. The main thing I don't like is form; the body still looks wrong. I also attempted to do hands and feet but those are some of the most difficult parts to draw, at least for me, so I left them unfinished. I even took a picture of my own hand but it didn't seem to help. As always, any feedback is greatly appreciated, but it might be worthwile to put this project on hold until I get a little better at drawing.
It's pronounced Drag-uh-vor
At 10/24/21 12:14 PM, Dragavoir wrote: Finally finished this piece. I think its greatly improved since my first post. However there are still some things I think could be improved. For instance, the button eye seems very flat. Additionally, I wasn't sure how to add more layers of fur to the face. Again feedback is appreciated! Hopefully someday I'll be able to post to the art section of Newgrounds.
You've actually improved between the last one and this one! But I gotta say what I'm guessing is a black gradient is brining the quality down. There are ways to to add darkness without obscuring the character as is on the bottom version you lose the fur. Either lower the gradients opacity or figure out a way to not obscure to much.
In terms of fur it's somewhat like drawing hair it's a repeating pattern with implied tufts. take a furry artwork and study the face and see if you can figure things out, also study hair and see if that helps.
At 11/7/21 11:17 AM, Dragavoir wrote: The more I look at it, the worse it gets. I suppose I knew this would be a bad idea from the beginning. Made some progress on the dragon, but obviously, it doesn't look great. The main thing I don't like is form; the body still looks wrong. I also attempted to do hands and feet but those are some of the most difficult parts to draw, at least for me, so I left them unfinished. I even took a picture of my own hand but it didn't seem to help. As always, any feedback is greatly appreciated, but it might be worthwile to put this project on hold until I get a little better at drawing.
As I understand it, this dragon is closer to a human in anatomy (if I was wrong, correct me). Perhaps the body looks wrong because of the compressed, slightly unnatural pose, it is also quite static. I suggest changing the pose so that the drawing looks a little more lively.
And the hands oooh they are a real meme in the art community. Through blood and tears you will definitely learn to draw hands, it only way. It's good that you started practicing even now!
Aw man, what a wholesome thread! Gotta love the love in the BBS.
okay now, good luck with your portfolio, bud!
time to go back to the dark side of the bbs: the general board
Check current mood, cool music!
So apparently I can't draw what I want to the first time around. I need to draw it a second time for it to look right. Started the dragon over again and it looks better but still needs a few things. The right wing (our right) doesn't seem correct to me. It is supposed to be curled like the left wing but since the camera is looking directly at it, its not covered or blocked by itself. I feel like it needs to be more stretched outwards but I'm not sure. Why did I choose 3/4ths perspective? Also, the hands and arms are closer to what I'm going for but they still look off. While it is not part of this piece, they are supposed to look like they're holding a ball or orb or something similar. Let me know what you all think. I'd also like to thank everyone who has given me feedback. I am so appreciative and thankful for everyone's help. So thank you and thanks again!
It's pronounced Drag-uh-vor
At 11/9/21 03:10 PM, Dragavoir wrote: So apparently I can't draw what I want to the first time around. I need to draw it a second time for it to look right. Started the dragon over again and it looks better but still needs a few things. The right wing (our right) doesn't seem correct to me. It is supposed to be curled like the left wing but since the camera is looking directly at it, its not covered or blocked by itself. I feel like it needs to be more stretched outwards but I'm not sure. Why did I choose 3/4ths perspective? Also, the hands and arms are closer to what I'm going for but they still look off. While it is not part of this piece, they are supposed to look like they're holding a ball or orb or something similar. Let me know what you all think. I'd also like to thank everyone who has given me feedback. I am so appreciative and thankful for everyone's help. So thank you and thanks again!
Usually folks don’t get all these redraws and drawovers, so I guess you won the lottery. I’m on a train, so my line work is shaky, but here:
One of the reasons you’re having trouble judging shapes and proportions is because your construction guides aren’t really communicating the information you need. You wouldn’t describe your own arms and legs as a series of ovals, would you? They’re more like cylinders, yeah? Hips, heads and torsos have curves, but there’s clear depth and sides to them, so they’re more cubic than a circle, yeah? They’re 3D objects placed in 3D space, so even though you’re using simple shapes to build a more complex form, try to make them better resemble what they actually are right off the bat. Proportions are hard to judge without any perspective; things typically don’t flip or foreshorten consistently if you don’t measure it out or don’t know how. That takes a lot of study, but it’s worth learning if you want to design characters. Lastly, you can only get so far without references for things like anatomy. We’re not born with an innate photographic knowledge of what things look like, and we don’t get there by guessing a million times - we have pictures, and you can (and should) have them on a screen nearby as you draw.
das good lulz
ill give it a 4/10
At 11/10/21 07:56 PM, Skoops wrote: One of the reasons you’re having trouble judging shapes and proportions is because your construction guides aren’t really communicating the information you need. You wouldn’t describe your own arms and legs as a series of ovals, would you? They’re more like cylinders, yeah? Hips, heads and torsos have curves, but there’s clear depth and sides to them, so they’re more cubic than a circle, yeah? They’re 3D objects placed in 3D space, so even though you’re using simple shapes to build a more complex form, try to make them better resemble what they actually are right off the bat. Proportions are hard to judge without any perspective; things typically don’t flip or foreshorten consistently if you don’t measure it out or don’t know how. That takes a lot of study, but it’s worth learning if you want to design characters. Lastly, you can only get so far without references for things like anatomy. We’re not born with an innate photographic knowledge of what things look like, and we don’t get there by guessing a million times - we have pictures, and you can (and should) have them on a screen nearby as you draw.
So is this somewhat of what you're talking about or is there still something I'm not getting?
It's pronounced Drag-uh-vor
At 11/11/21 07:54 PM, Dragavoir wrote: So is this somewhat of what you're talking about or is there still something I'm not getting?
Eyyy, not bad for a first attempt. The construction is a lot more solid now, but the next thing you need to do is to get these solid shapes arranged naturally, in a way that follows an organic bone and muscle structure. I think some folks here took a crack at that, but this is the part where you need good anatomy/pose references. You really can't rely on pure imagination for this part; it's just too complicated. Thankfully, your guy is pretty humanoid, so we can use human refs.
I usually go to Pinterest to search for poses similar to what I want (usually my end result ends up being a combination of 2 or more refs) and use them to make informed placements of my construction shapes. You'll learn a lot faster by seeing how joints connect and how muscles wrap around the body, rather than just reading about it and trying to imagine it.
At 11/11/21 08:31 PM, Skoops wrote:At 11/11/21 07:54 PM, Dragavoir wrote: So is this somewhat of what you're talking about or is there still something I'm not getting?Eyyy, not bad for a first attempt. The construction is a lot more solid now, but the next thing you need to do is to get these solid shapes arranged naturally, in a way that follows an organic bone and muscle structure. I think some folks here took a crack at that, but this is the part where you need good anatomy/pose references. You really can't rely on pure imagination for this part; it's just too complicated. Thankfully, your guy is pretty humanoid, so we can use human refs.
I usually go to Pinterest to search for poses similar to what I want (usually my end result ends up being a combination of 2 or more refs) and use them to make informed placements of my construction shapes. You'll learn a lot faster by seeing how joints connect and how muscles wrap around the body, rather than just reading about it and trying to imagine it.
Thank you for your help. It sure is coming along a lot better than before. Although I feel like all this help and feedback is undeserved since I am not as good as I thought I was at drawing. So something I don’t think anyone has touched on yet is that the dragon is in the air. That’s why the legs have always been off. Do you have any recommendations for poses? Jumping comes to mind but I’m not sure if plain standing would be better.
It's pronounced Drag-uh-vor
At 11/11/21 09:50 PM, Dragavoir wrote:At 11/11/21 08:31 PM, Skoops wrote:Thank you for your help. It sure is coming along a lot better than before. Although I feel like all this help and feedback is undeserved since I am not as good as I thought I was at drawing. So something I don’t think anyone has touched on yet is that the dragon is in the air. That’s why the legs have always been off. Do you have any recommendations for poses? Jumping comes to mind but I’m not sure if plain standing would be better.At 11/11/21 07:54 PM, Dragavoir wrote: So is this somewhat of what you're talking about or is there still something I'm not getting?Eyyy, not bad for a first attempt. The construction is a lot more solid now, but the next thing you need to do is to get these solid shapes arranged naturally, in a way that follows an organic bone and muscle structure. I think some folks here took a crack at that, but this is the part where you need good anatomy/pose references. You really can't rely on pure imagination for this part; it's just too complicated. Thankfully, your guy is pretty humanoid, so we can use human refs.
I usually go to Pinterest to search for poses similar to what I want (usually my end result ends up being a combination of 2 or more refs) and use them to make informed placements of my construction shapes. You'll learn a lot faster by seeing how joints connect and how muscles wrap around the body, rather than just reading about it and trying to imagine it.
Hey, you gotta start somewhere. You can make a ton of progress pretty fast if you let yourself, so don't tell yourself that you're not ready.
As for poses, I dunno if you can find a pdf or zip of it online, but there's this japanese book series called Action Pose that freakin' rocks. I have a copy of Action Pose 2 that I use a lot; it's 200 pages of this kind of stuff:
Lots of power stances and jumping references, too. Whatever I can't find there, I usually get off Pinterest or something like that. Sometimes you gotta go buy a tripod and photograph yourself doing the pose if it's crazy enough, but the books and the internet are probably good enough for you for now.
If you want to know more about construction methods and the theory-side of anatomy, Proko on YouTube is the best channel out there. Usually you can just search "Proko" and whatever part of the body you're having trouble with, and there'll be three videos about it.
In addition to learning anatomy and construction (which is VERY important, and Skoops provided some really nice references) it also helps a lot to do side by side comparisons of a real life example with illustrations that are accomplishing what you what to accomplish. For dynamic poses in the air, you cannot go wrong with looking at the way people draw Spider-Man. His body is manipulated in super fun ways and has references that range from realism (the live-action movies) to super duper stylized. You're bound to find a reference you admire of how that character's shapes are handled.
It also helps to look for references that are close to your subject matter. For a humanoid dragon type, I think the Gargoyles animated tv show is probably a really good source. Not only can you have an inspiration for the body you're working with, but you can also look up clips of it and see it in motion.
I apologize in advance for the color vomit, but it helps me visualize perspective. I think this is better? I worked on the dragon some more, trying to incorporate all the great feedback I've gotten. I also thought more about my character and the image I wanted it to portray. I want the dragon to look more like a king or how other royal figures are depicted. So, I found a good reference (attached) and changed the pose a bit, instead of the awkward double hands up pose I had before. Hopefully it looks more natural. The right wing (our right) still bothers me however, and I'm not too sure how to fix it. I'll just have to experiment more to find what looks right or find another reference. Please let me know how I'm doing and thanks in advance!
It's pronounced Drag-uh-vor
How's it look? I did the line art for the dragon. Not sure if I'm happy with the head or the right wing though. The head looks too... friendly I guess I would call it? I'm not sure if adding details such as the eyes and mouth would help solve that issue or if the shape needs to be changed. Let me know what you all think and thank you for your feedback. It doesn't look like much to me but I guess I'm improving lol.
It's pronounced Drag-uh-vor
I have spent two hours drawing that one hand. ;-; Progress has slowed down with the dragon since it's been difficult for me to get things to look right. Adding details to the head did confirm my suspicions that the head shape is wrong. While it does look realistic like a lizards head it doesn't have the ferocity of a dragon. Oddly enough, the right wing looks better with the addition of the hand. As for the hand itself, it's a good start but still needs work. I did try to do the left hand but it didn't look right at all so I scrapped what I had. If you have any tips or feedback please let me know and thank you!
It's pronounced Drag-uh-vor
After almost 3 whole months of doing nothing art related, I'm finally back. I have excuses, but who cares, they're just excuses. I was spending a long time with the dragon I had been working on, making small adjustments and being frustrated that it still wasn't turning out great, so I decided to just go ahead and finish the dragon regardless of how it looked. So, this is as done as it is going to get for now, but I may decide to come back to it at a later time. While it may not have turned out how I wanted it to, I did learn a lot which is what counts.
I also started working on a new dragon. This time in pen and pencil, so I appologize in advance (I cannot draw a straight line to save my life). I am actually quite happy with how it turned out but I would still like some feedback before I digitize it. Right now the only things I would change are minor symmetry issues and line refinement. I would also change the bottom right forearm so it's not a circle and more of a segment like the bottom left. Otherwise, I don't really see any other issues. Regardless, please let me know if you have any suggestions! I really appreciate all the help I receive!
It's pronounced Drag-uh-vor
dont be afraid to post anything on newgrounds because newgrounds kicks ass. its great that youre going out of your way to get feedback
Another day, another dragon sketch, again in pencil so I apologize for my awful line work. This one I'm not too happy with. Although. I didn't have any references to work with so I guess it wasn't going to turn out well to begin with. The only thing I really like is the tail, that came out okay. The main thing I'd like feedback on though is the head. In this pose, the dragon is supposed to be roaring but to me it seems more like an "a" and I'm not too sure how to fix it. If anyone has any advice, please let me know! Other tips and feedback are also welcome. Thank you!
It's pronounced Drag-uh-vor
Yet another dragon sketch. This might be the last one for awhile. I now have 6 active projects I'm working on. The four dragon monarchs plus a story about them and a different story. At least I'm having fun lol. This one was small so I blew it up a bit and it looks kinda funky but that's not the point. I think it came out okay. It didn't come out too great like Sulphrra did but it's not too bad either. I didn't have a reference to work with again so some things might be fixed with a good reference. However the two things I'd like suggestions on are the neck and feet. This one is in a resting position so a half-moon or crescent shape but the neck doesn't really seem to fit. The same thing goes for the feet (hence why I didn't draw them). I tried multiple different styles such as how a cat's paws disappear when they're resting but that didn't work. I also thought about how deer have hooves so they leave their forelimbs laid backwards but that didn't fit either. Any tips and suggestions are appreciated. I haven't gotten any feedback lately but I'll keep posting and trying my best regardless. Thank you in advance for any suggestions you may have.
It's pronounced Drag-uh-vor
Drew some things. I thought they turned out okay. If you have any feedback about any of my drawings, feel free to let me know. Thank you!
It's pronounced Drag-uh-vor
Finally found the motivation to digitize one of my hand drawn sketches. It is rough right now but I want to make sure it looks right before moving on to finish it. It looks okay but something seems different that makes the original better but I'm not sure what that is. The head maybe? Either way, feedback is always appreciated and thank you in advance!
It's pronounced Drag-uh-vor
