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Another Art Topic


Blackavar
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I had a thread here before, but it seems to have been moved to the Sprites section, back when that subforum was created. Since I prefer drawing to spriting, I'm just going to start a new topic here. I joined the FE community around five or six years ago and have been lurking for most of that time, but I figure I might try being semi-active again here.

Newest pieces first:

[spoiler=Random Guy]practice3.jpg

Practicing coloring, as I consider myself still in the early stages of developing a style. The colors here are inspired by someone else's style. I really liked the way they colored their works at first, but now I realize that the way they render noses is not really suited for my purposes, among some other things. It was fun imitating them for one drawing, though.

That being said, you can tell I really dislike doing hair, especially shading it. Hopefully this will be remedied in the future.

[spoiler=Pose Sketches]practiceposes.png

Quick sketches, using the random pose viewer on Posemaniacs for reference. I started trying to sketch two random poses every day...two days ago. Today's essentially the last day of my break, so I won't be able to keep up this pace anymore. I'll keep trying though, since I told myself years ago that I would work on my artistic skills in college.

The contrast of values on the hands, or lack thereof, is really bothersome, I know. And every time I draw people I'm reminded of how much I prefer drawing males to females.

[spoiler=Another Head]practiceq.jpg

I was still (and still am) getting used to using a tablet, so I drew this, using a photo reference of Matvey Lykov. This was done using only the hard round brush in Photoshop at 100% opacity, since I still used (and still use) the tablet pen just like a regular pen, and not like a brush or anything close to it. You can tell I gave up on the suit and hair. It's a shame that this piece came out the way it did, since the model is really rather nice-looking in photographs, at least.

[spoiler=Headshot Again]sigsketch3.jpg

I really had way too much fun with DA Muro once I got a tablet. This is just something I quickly threw together while...procrastinating on something, probably. Of course, it's of FE4's Sigurd, who is my favorite fictional character and the subject of at least two-thirds of what I draw. However, I won't post most of that here because the volume will be too overwhelming, unless if you're crazy about him or something.

[spoiler=Character Design]sketch1d.jpg

Concept art of a middle-aged female for an RPG in a fantasy setting with magical guns. This was for a game creation project I joined last semester. The concept wasn't used, and I eventually left the group due to time commitments, but it was fun while it lasted. Also, I would be very surprised if you knew what project I am referring to; there don't seem to be any other major FE fans at my university now...

That's it for a starting post. As always, I welcome critique from you guys, so please don't be afraid to call me out on something that seems off. I probably won't make changes (since I find it much easier to restart a piece from scratch), but I'll at least keep the comments in mind for future reference.

Also, if this topic ever gets updated again, I warn you that it will probably be with FE2/4/5 fanart.

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Oooh I like you're stuff, the heads especially. They're really awesome. Drawing people is so hard...but your people are so good aha. I probably like the "another head" the best because sketchy looking drawings are awesome. Then Sigurd because its really stylistic and interesting.

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Wow, these are all beautiful. Thank you for sharing them! I really love the middle-aged woman. That's an age/gender combination that you hardly ever see in playable RPG characters. (Look at Fire Emblem, for example; I think the only important middle-aged woman is Ismaire, and she's not playable in the main game.) It's too bad your group didn't use her!

As for the Sigurd art - this is a Fire Emblem forum, after all. Not to mention the home of the Sigurd Facepalm. Bring 'em on! :)

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Wow, annother stunningly awesome artist? I really like the first head. The shading and highlighting of the eyelashes and eyebrows especially impressed me, even though the pic was great over-all. Ah, I really should focuss my attention on developing more basic art skills when I have more time. Maybe then I could actually call myself an artist! :lol:

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Strawman: Thanks! I'm rather fond of sketchy drawings myself.

roymbrog: Thanks! I like the first head as well, so far. Most of these were done in Adobe Photoshop 7.0, though I've heard it's not really a program made for digital illustration--the name even implies it.

Ken Zomg: Haha...I wouldn't call your drawings "goofy" or classify mine as "stunning" or "realism". Thanks, though. :)

Astelaine: Thank you very much! I agree, RPGs do tend to lack playable middle-aged women, among many other kinds of characters. The only other really important FE one I can think of right now is Queen Rahna, but then again she's also my favorite.

Sigurd Facepalm? Now there's an idea...

Mercakete: Hey now, that's a great goal! If you are really working on developing more basic art skills (which artists of all skill levels practice), then why shouldn't you call yourself an artist? :)

Anyways, here's another picture done in DA Muro, which is becoming quite addicting to use.

[spoiler=WIP]practice5.png

The main thing that's bothering me right now is the fact that she apparently has two different sets of skin tones--one that goes better with the background, and one that's closer to her intended skin color. I'm mostly ambivalent between the two, but which do you think works better?

(Not sure if I'll end up finishing this one, actually. This was supposed to be another picture of a particular female character that appears in maybe a quarter of what I draw, but right now these facial features aren't what I have in mind for her...)

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Thank you! ^_^

Again, I am stunned. You certainly know the structure of what you draw. I like the darker tones better myself. Maybe a burgundy background would compliment that skin tone better; warmer, darker, richer. That's just what I think, though.

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Mercakete: Thanks! I definitely agree with you on the colors, though I wouldn't say that I really know the structure of what I draw. But that's why I want to practice more.

[spoiler=Progress]practice52.png

Progress shot of the WIP. You might be able to tell whom I was referring to earlier.

The brown at the top will be the new background color, after a few tweaks. I'll have to figure out what to do with some of the teal hues though.

Once again, hair is still a pain to render. However, it does make the awkward placement of facial features easier to see. Hmm.

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Wow, that painting is beautiful! Amazing job on the hair. The hues and tints and brush strokes really give it volume and (unlike how hair is sometimes drawn) it doesn't look at all flat. Instead, it looks very natural. Also, I approve of the new background color! :D And yes, it does look like Diadora; I was thinking the same thing.

As to what to do with the teal: maybe make it a lighting effect? She could be standing near water or near a healer or something.

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I agree that the hair makes the facial errors easier to see. It seems like the middle of her face is sunken in, as if someone punched her between the eyes and over the bridge of the nose. Other than that, she's really gorgeous. The hair is just captivating, and really invites the eye to explore all of its shapes and details. I really look forward to seeing your updates to her. :)

Edited by Astelaine
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  • 2 years later...

Well...I haven't actually done too much art stuff in the past few years, but I figure I might start posting on these forums again.

From a little over a year ago:

random headshot

I was drawing some character of mine as an excuse to practice coloring. Honestly, I don't think I've improved much in the time since then. Also, the character ended up looking younger than I intended.

And from the past month:

wip thing

I need to work on scenery more often. Then I can try this one again.

another headshot

Incidentally, the same person from the previous image, since I was trying to work out the details of his face.

I hope to put out way more content over the coming months, so that at least my dA gallery won't be full of embarrassing memories. If you have any quick and easy FE fanart requests, I might be interested in doing them. Otherwise, I seem to be hitting a creative slump now.

On a side note, what do people use nowadays to host images without having to register for an account?

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Aaaaaa, Blackavar returns~!

I really stinkin' love the way you shade necks. Like, they're really pretty, hrngh.

ImageShack and TinyPic don't require an account, though, maybe you might consider getting a Tumblr for your art stuff.

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I really love how you pick up highlights and shadows on the skin. I'm really jealous of people who can paint realistically. I hadn't seen any of your old stuff but that very first pic from 2011 reminds me a lot of something but I can't quite put my finger on it.

If I had to recommend any account-less image sharing system, I'd say TinyPic, but both TinyPic and ImageShack are getting increasingly more restrictive. Imgur lets you make accounts from existing Google/Yahoo/Twitter/Facebook accounts and lets you remain fairly anonymous as it lets you generate URLs without your account name in them, and is a lot less restrictive about accepted content and image dimensions.

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Flan-chan: Thanks! I do feel intimidated by neck shading, since you usually have to deal with the shadow/s cast by the person's head. And the area tends to collect skin folds as well. Argh.

Samias: Thank you! The style in that pic was inspired by some artist on pixiv, but I don't remember how I stumbled across their account. Maybe that helps?

Anyways, new stuff:

another bust

A character I've had for nearly a decade, whose face I keep redesigning. This was started three months ago (so it's an old design), then left sitting around until I decided to make some progress on it. Feel free to critique this one, since I actually plan to go back to this again, heh.

[spoiler=time to try out TinyPic]

opd5w9.jpg

A sketch of some other character I started working on because, honestly, I wanted to see the modern Catwoman aesthetic on a man. to be fair there's some Catman and r63 fanart like that... I've since then made several changes to this design, but that's for another day, another post.

I'm still open to a few quick FE requests, because my comfort zone is starting to become very apparent from these past few pictures.

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Boney: Hey, good to see you again!

would you accept a Vanessa request? O:

Sure! I'll get started on that. Vanessa was actually my favorite character from FE8, so I hope I can portray her well.

So...here's a wip of something I was reworking the other day.

[spoiler=FE fanart?]2qsv314.jpg

This used to be some old portrait sketch of FE4's Deirdre, but then I decided to get more ambitious with this drawing. I plan to experiment with some color variations and fix up Deirdre in general before continuing with the rendering. Does anyone else feel something's off with this composition, though?

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d4230d7d2247a93d7cd0f8473fa598c0.png

my-keyboard-is-broken-right-now-so-i-thought-it-would-be-easier-to-show-rather-than-type(sorry)

overall-i-think-it-lacked-depth-which-made-it-seem-flat.-so-i-changed-the-sizes-and-values-in-the-foreground.-deirdre-also-needed-to-be-a-bit-bigger-to-add-that-feeling-of-depth

edited-the-colors-a-tad-too!-but-you-said-you're-working-on-those:D-this-is-lovely-and-im-excited-for-what-you-will-do.-looking-forward-to-it.-i-hope-my-edit-helps-in-some-way.-i-can-remove-it-if-you-like-too-since-i-didnt-ask-permission-to-edit

Edited by Mewiyev
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  • 2 weeks later...

Mewiyev: Oh, wow, thank you so much for the edit! And yeah, don't worry about the permission stuff. I really appreciate you taking the time out of your schedule to do a paintover in the first place.

The composition of this pic initially had Deirdre smaller for some reason, but your idea makes more sense and looks better, in hindsight. I'll definitely apply those suggestions, though there probably won't be another major update on that pic for some time...it's just something I want to spend a little extra time on.

In the meantime, here's some progress on Boney's request.

[spoiler=Vanessa?]

2wobtpc.jpg

The hand will be moved down a bit and reworked, since right now it's just uncomfortable-looking. After that, it's on to more shading touchups, learning how to actually draw feathers, and trying out a different coloring technique. All in all, a pretty good learning experience so far.

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