Thanqol Learns To Draw!

[Saeyan]

SKYRIM. I haven't played a serious game in...forever, really. T_T I didn't see this before but:
Shape correction redux! By a girl!

You could hypothetically get the shape Domochevsky drew but that would require a seriously amazing bra, and possibly breast implants.

[Domochevsky]

Mhm, i might have been projecting/exaggerating a bit, seeing what Thanqol was going for here.

(Good catch on the left leg, though. Adjusted the right one, but not the left. Shame on me. >_> )


Skyrim, man. How does it work. vov

[Thanqol]

Symbol of love, peace and cheap conjuring tricks.

Very pretty. You've got some great shades of white there.

What happened to the poor thing's legs?!

Legs are a luxury, not a right.

SKYRIM. I haven't played a serious game in...forever, really. T_T I didn't see this before but:
Shape correction redux! By a girl!

You could hypothetically get the shape Domochevsky drew but that would require a seriously amazing bra, and possibly breast implants.

Hahah, I did think Domo's adjustment looked a bit... generous!

Thanks for the fix. Need more proportion revisitation. On the list.

Skyrim, man. How does it work. vov

Shout at dragons.



Day 183: Ha Ha Funny

Damn these are fun. Still just messing around, basically. Brush+Blur for most of this.

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Time: 1.5 Hours
Music: Holding Hooves

[SiuiS]

Day 182: Paints

Paints are pretty cool.

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Time: 1 Hour
Music: Remember

But but but

You just
And I can't
Then... You did
And I

*sobs*

TT_TT anyway... What tutorials did you use for this? Any links, references, relevant inspiration? My interests are piqued.

I said that.

I'm pretty certain it was somepony else telling you to use people, not portraits. One of your first illustrations of a girl, possibly before you forgot the eyebrow correction.

But again, these things all blend together. I'm sure that advice has been passed around a lot. I'm kinda ditzy in that regard, I pick up stuff via osmosis unless you catch my attention...

By... Doing the stuff I plan.. To do... Ok, ok, I'll stop. XD

Legs are a luxury, not a right.

Poor Twilight. Sure, the prostheses help, but there's only so much they can do.

Day 183: Ha Ha Funny

Damn these are fun. Still just messing around, basically. Brush+Blur for most of this.

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Time: 1.5 Hours
Music: Holding Hooves

wow, very nice. The hair? Yeah, your coloring work is coming together. It's still a little grainy, but at the size I first viewed it at, it was pretty impressive.

The hand, though, there isn't enough articulation or distinction to make it a sure thing. At first it looked like he had a knife taped to his stump. It's a shadowplay thing. I don't think I can offer advice though, you're beyond my level of technique.

Fascinating. There is a huge lump of improvement over the last few days. Gracious, man.

[Thanqol]

But but but

You just
And I can't
Then... You did
And I

*sobs*

TT_TT anyway... What tutorials did you use for this? Any links, references, relevant inspiration? My interests are piqued.

Nothing at all. I just sketched out a really vague outline and started painting at random. Brush tool and a little blur. Tutorials seem like a good idea at some point, but right now, I'm just basically playing around and getting a feel for it. I did a lot of playing with brush settings too. I discovered, in particular, that grey looks really bad when you're trying to shade something white. I actually used light blue and light purple and blurred them and, somehow, they make the dove look way more white than it would with shades of white alone. It's fascinating.

By... Doing the stuff I plan.. To do... Ok, ok, I'll stop. XD

Thanqol: Stealing your ideas and making you look bad since 2003

wow, very nice. The hair? Yeah, your coloring work is coming together. It's still a little grainy, but at the size I first viewed it at, it was pretty impressive.

The hand, though, there isn't enough articulation or distinction to make it a sure thing. At first it looked like he had a knife taped to his stump. It's a shadowplay thing. I don't think I can offer advice though, you're beyond my level of technique.

Fascinating. There is a huge lump of improvement over the last few days. Gracious, man.[/color]

It does look better at smaller sizes, you're right.

The hand was unconscionably awful.

I'm going to try more of these. See just how far I can ride the curve.

[Thanqol]

Day 184: Doing It All

Sorry guys, it was finishing this or getting to work on time.

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Time: 18 minutes
Music: Carnival of Rust

[Kaytara]

That dove is beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. If you've just gone and sketched that from imagination, you must be getting REALLY good at the whole "REALLY looking with your eyes when you look at objects" thing. Being to reproduce random objects and creatures from a memory of how they generally look is a nice milestone.

[Silviya]

Wow, Thanqol. I haven't checked in on this thread for a long time because of being in Italy and then because of NaNoWriMo craziness, and you've improved a lot. Your poses especially look a lot more fluid and natural, and your use of color is getting really good.

I really love the dove from day 182. I like the subtle hints of blue and pink in its feathers, and the way you've blurred the white around it gives it a sort of ethereal, otherworldly feel. I'm also really impressed with the wings--as someone who draws lots of winged things, I know how difficult getting the wings to look right can be, especially when there's the foreshortening like that. Great job.

[Thanqol]

That dove is beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. If you've just gone and sketched that from imagination, you must be getting REALLY good at the whole "REALLY looking with your eyes when you look at objects" thing. Being to reproduce random objects and creatures from a memory of how they generally look is a nice milestone.

Wow, Thanqol. I haven't checked in on this thread for a long time because of being in Italy and then because of NaNoWriMo craziness, and you've improved a lot. Your poses especially look a lot more fluid and natural, and your use of color is getting really good.

I really love the dove from day 182. I like the subtle hints of blue and pink in its feathers, and the way you've blurred the white around it gives it a sort of ethereal, otherworldly feel. I'm also really impressed with the wings--as someone who draws lots of winged things, I know how difficult getting the wings to look right can be, especially when there's the foreshortening like that. Great job.

I'm blushing so hard now. Thank you so much!

Day 185: Exterminaghten

I feel kinda bad about posting multiple days of blueline sketches in a row, but it's gonna keep happening until next Thursday. I've got a very, very busy few days ahead of me.

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Time: 30 minutes
Music: Dr Who Theme

[Thanqol]

Day 186: Promises

The Paint Tool SAI trial expired today.

I think... I think I'll let it lapse. I like the program, but I don't like it $60. It's got it's limits, and isn't a huge improvement over Photoshop Elements. I'll save my money and, when I've got a better idea, I'll buy a program that does everything I need it to rather than one that does half of what I need it to do. If anyone has any recommends to look into, I'd appreciate it.

Anyway, another quick one.

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Time: 30 Mins
Music: May The Best Pet Win

[Trazoi]

I'm currently using:

• ArtRage Studio Pro - for pencil, ink and mucking about with paint
• GIMP - for digital editing
• Inkscape - for vectors

The issue I have with something like Photoshop that can do everything is that the interface is so complex I get lost. I much prefer using something like ArtRage when working on the initial sketches because it's so simple. It's just the canvas and a handful of tools. Here's a screenshot of it in action:

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[Thanqol]

I'm currently using:

• ArtRage Studio Pro - for pencil, ink and mucking about with paint
• GIMP - for digital editing
• Inkscape - for vectors

The issue I have with something like Photoshop that can do everything is that the interface is so complex I get lost. I much prefer using something like ArtRage when working on the initial sketches because it's so simple. It's just the canvas and a handful of tools. Here's a screenshot of it in action:

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If there's a plus it's that after using SAI, Photoshop makes a lot more sense. SAI's interface was easy enough to let me learn a whole lot more about the basic arrangement of stuffs and brushes, and while Photoshop presents it in a whole lot worse way, now I know what I'm looking for.

Artrage looks really interesting, though, I'll investigate that.

[Trazoi]

Artrage looks really interesting, though, I'll investigate that.

There's a Starter Edition that's older, limited and free, plus a bunch of 30 day demos for the more recent version. It's worth trying out. ArtRage isn't the be-all-and-end-all of tools - it's pretty much only for digital pens and paints - but for that it's pretty neat for the price.

The coolest tool that I hadn't realised ArtRage had until I did this (mostly-)daily drawing thing is that wheel in the top left corner. It's a quick tool to move, zoom and most usefully rotate the canvas, all right there. The rotating is brilliant because I can spin the canvas into just the right tilt to draw whatever I like.

[Thanqol]

There's a Starter Edition that's older, limited and free, plus a bunch of 30 day demos for the more recent version. It's worth trying out. ArtRage isn't the be-all-and-end-all of tools - it's pretty much only for digital pens and paints - but for that it's pretty neat for the price.

The coolest tool that I hadn't realised ArtRage had until I did this (mostly-)daily drawing thing is that wheel in the top left corner. It's a quick tool to move, zoom and most usefully rotate the canvas, all right there. The rotating is brilliant because I can spin the canvas into just the right tilt to draw whatever I like.

*Nod nod* I'll give it a look when I have time!

Day 187: Traps

Speedsketching like this feels like such a trap. I dunno, I feel like I'm cheating by drawing like this. I'm really looking forwards to Thursday when I can get back into it properly. I'm so looking forwards to trying more paints!

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Time: 15 mins
Music: Incurable.

[Trazoi]

IMO speed sketching isn't a trap, it's merely the first stage. I've got to sketch a bunch of stick figures before I get a pose looking even half-decent anyway. Do a bunch quick and fast, pick the best, then go from there. It's still good practice.

[Thanqol]

IMO speed sketching isn't a trap, it's merely the first stage. I've got to sketch a bunch of stick figures before I get a pose looking even half-decent anyway. Do a bunch quick and fast, pick the best, then go from there. It's still good practice.

That's reassuring.

Day 188: *Sigh*

Well, semester's over. I'm done for the year. But, game got rescheduled, had to waste a bunch of time with paperwork, and the TV series I was watching ended on a cliffhanger. I'm still not come to grips with Photoshop and haven't had time to explore alternatives. It's kind of annoying - I've got to make a high dollar commitment as to which tool I should master, and if I make the wrong move I'll be wasting not only lots of time, but lots of money. I dunno. I'll figure something out.

Oh yeah, and I got a reminder about gender equality. After googling 'army girl' to find models, I discovered that we don't really have much respect for women in uniform.

And so it goes.

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Time: 25 minutes
Music: Selling the News

[Trazoi]

Oh yeah, and I got a reminder about gender equality. After googling 'army girl' to find models, I discovered that we don't really have much respect for women in uniform.

You get a better actual soldier-to-pinup ratio with "army women".

Which pieces of software are you considering? IMO there's plenty of decent software in the free to A$100 range, depending on what you need.

[Thanqol]

You get a better actual soldier-to-pinup ratio with "army women".

Which pieces of software are you considering? IMO there's plenty of decent software in the free to A$100 range, depending on what you need.

Good advice, thanks.

I'm not sure what I'm considering. From what I kinda-sorta-maybe hear a lot of respected artists use Photoshop, but my last cursory examination of their website saw the high level ones with four digit sticker prices and I'm not sure how to compare the low-level ones. I'm otherwise pretty uninformed, and I'd love any list you could throw together.

[Trazoi]

I'm no expert (obviously, you've seen my thread!), but here's what I know:

When it comes to the big name companies, the big two are Adobe and Corel. Adobe's the biggest what with "photoshop" being a verb these days, but Corel has some diehard fans too. Corel Paint is meant to be great for organic painting, like ArtRage ony more so, although I've never tried it out myself. I did like Paint Shop Pro ages ago, but we're talking back when they were JASC and not Corel.

I got a copy of Adobe Creative Suite 3 a few years back when I wanted to try out Flash and use my educational pricing benefits. However apart from Flash I never got past the learning curve on Illustrator and Photoshop. They're designed for pro graphic designers who have been using Adobe products for years. Apart from when I want to use fancy conversion filters I find it's much easier to use Inkscape or GIMP instead (admittedly I had been using them for ages so I had some familiarity to go with)

The lead freebie software out there is GIMP for raster and Inkscape for vector. They're fairly capable for hobby work, and they're the tools I use the most. GIMP has IMO some interface issues, and it's not that great to do raw drawing with, but it's fine for image manipulation for the web. Inkscape is a good SVG editor and IMO has a better interface than Illustrator.

Other than these, stuff I've used:

• ArtRage, a natural paint program that I've already mentioned. It's pretty good for the price.
• Manga Studio Debut: I think I bought this because someone pushed it to me in a sale last time I was in a drawing mood. It's a comic drawing suite, specifically B&W manga oriented. It's actually fairly nifty for having a set of nice pen tools and comic panels built in, but the translated interface confused me.

I think these two are somewhere around the US$50 range, depending whether they're on sale or not.

There's a whole bunch of other stuff I can't remember exactly when I looked at a couple of years back when I was looking around. A lot of them were decent for their one specific task, like a really good pencil tool or making comics like Manga Studio.

It depends on what tools you need. Adobe Photoshop can do the lot, but it costs a grand* and you'll need to put in a lot of time to learn how to use it.

* Actually you'll qualify for student pricing, although I don't think Adobe offer the convenient education version I got a while back that's exactly the same as the full, including allowing commercial use.

[Domochevsky]

Hm, remind me, what system are you on? I might be just about to shill openCanvas again.

[Thanqol]

Hm, remind me, what system are you on? I might be just about to shill openCanvas again.

Windows 7, I believe. What's the story with openCanvas?

[Trazoi]

Windows 7, I believe. What's the story with openCanvas?

It's an art program suited for doing sketches with tablets, Windows only. Version 1 is freeware, latest version is commercial. Dom kept trying to convince me to try it out, but I use a Mac.

[Thanqol]

It's an art program suited for doing sketches with tablets, Windows only. Version 1 is freeware, latest version is commercial. Dom kept trying to convince me to try it out, but I use a Mac.

That sounds like it ticks a lot of boxes; I find I really dislike the pencil/brush in Photoshop (if you look at the last three pictures, see how the lines are really jagged? I could probably work it out by meddling with brush settings for ages, but really...). I'll give it a look. I'll also see if there's trials drifting around of any of the others you mentioned Thanks for the help.

[Hawkflight]

It's kind of annoying - I've got to make a high dollar commitment as to which tool I should master, and if I make the wrong move I'll be wasting not only lots of time, but lots of money. I dunno. I'll figure something out.

You could just keep downloading the trial versions, using different e-mail addresses each time.

[Thanqol]

You could just keep downloading the trial versions, using different e-mail addresses each time.

SAI has me outfoxed on that regard, somehow.

[SiuiS]

*Nod nod* I'll give it a look when I have time!

Day 187: Traps

Speedsketching like this feels like such a trap. I dunno, I feel like I'm cheating by drawing like this. I'm really looking forwards to Thursday when I can get back into it properly. I'm so looking forwards to trying more paints!

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Time: 15 mins
Music: Incurable.

Speaking of, I'm noticing on your face design that you're making straight-up +'s in the face for positioning. Stop that, and make the lines curve with the head. They are supposed to be "painted on the surface" as it were and should follow the curves of the skull proper. You risk having obviously flat faces otherwise, or so I presume; if you do a dA art search, you'll see thousands of perfectly drawn amine characters whose faces look scrunched into the available space (like the face on the tongue in Kung Pow: Enter the Fist).

The cross on the skull is not only For positioning, it also fills in the needed space. By collapsing I to a 2d object in an otherwise '3d' image you rob the face of the space it needs to look organic and proportional.

That sounds like it ticks a lot of boxes; I find I really dislike the pencil/brush in Photoshop (if you look at the last three pictures, see how the lines are really jagged? I could probably work it out by meddling with brush settings for ages, but really...). I'll give it a look. I'll also see if there's trials drifting around of any of the others you mentioned Thanks for the help.

Hm. Opencanvas it is, then. I'll have to get a decentbattery for my "laptop" as a stand in measure and try it out.

You could just keep downloading the trial versions, using different e-mail addresses each time.

You have the most adorable avatar, Hawkflight

I hate to say it, because doing so well and safely is about as mug work as figuring out how to work Photoshop, but you could always extend the free trial until you have a satisfactory impression of the program.

I suspect in the end you'll do what most folks I've seen do; shuffle through several programs. Adobe illustrator for sketching and foundation, corel for basic paint and coloring, then photoshop for the touch ups.

It's exactly this sort of thing (along with nine-hour "speed paints" 9_6 ) that made mestop taking art so seriously. I don't plan to make a living off of it, so I tend to have better things to do.

Or so I thought. But I'm firing up an Xbox, so I haven't a leg to stand on, huh?

[Thanqol]

Speaking of, I'm noticing on your face design that you're making straight-up +'s in the face for positioning. Stop that, and make the lines curve with the head. They are supposed to be "painted on the surface" as it were and should follow the curves of the skull proper. You risk having obviously flat faces otherwise, or so I presume; if you do a dA art search, you'll see thousands of perfectly drawn amine characters whose faces look scrunched into the available space (like the face on the tongue in Kung Pow: Enter the Fist).

The cross on the skull is not only For positioning, it also fills in the needed space. By collapsing I to a 2d object in an otherwise '3d' image you rob the face of the space it needs to look organic and proportional.

Ohhhhhhhh

I hate to say it, because doing so well and safely is about as mug work as figuring out how to work Photoshop, but you could always extend the free trial until you have a satisfactory impression of the program.

I only have pretend hacking skills not real hacking skills.

I suspect in the end you'll do what most folks I've seen do; shuffle through several programs. Adobe illustrator for sketching and foundation, corel for basic paint and coloring, then photoshop for the touch ups.

The worst possible thing.

It's exactly this sort of thing (along with nine-hour "speed paints" 9_6 ) that made mestop taking art so seriously. I don't plan to make a living off of it, so I tend to have better things to do.

Or so I thought. But I'm firing up an Xbox, so I haven't a leg to stand on, huh?

I've mentioned before, but the habit I've gotten into of planning to finish every single piece in an hour or two has upsides and downsides. I'll investigate further.

Day 189: YEAAAAAAAAAAAAA

- no. I've come to a conclusion: I liked SAI much more than I gave it credit for and, moreover, I was just getting the hang of it. This was done in OpenCanvas and, while it's hugely customisable, I detest the eraser tool in it and it doesn't feel like an improvement. It has some really cool features I wish I could pillage for my imaginary super art program that doesn't cost $3400, but enh, I can live without

Welp, wasn't doing anything with that money anyway.

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Time: 1 hour general messing around
Music: Extinguish

[Hawkflight]

The worst possible thing.

*ahem* I believe you mean "The. Worst. Possible. Thing!"

- no. I've come to a conclusion: I liked SAI much more than I gave it credit for and, moreover, I was just getting the hang of it. This was done in OpenCanvas and, while it's hugely customisable, I detest the eraser tool in it and it doesn't feel like an improvement. It has some really cool features I wish I could pillage for my imaginary super art program that doesn't cost $3400, but enh, I can live without

Welp, wasn't doing anything with that money anyway.

So, when you go back, will you ... breath a huge SAI of relief?

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Time: 1 hour general messing around
Music: Extinguish

Interestingly, the guy's expression kinda works with that little note, was that intentional or a lucky accident?

[Thanqol]

Interestingly, the guy's expression kinda works with that little note, was that intentional or a lucky accident?

I guess you could say it was...

*sunglasses*

... the luck of the draw

[Hawkflight]

I guess you could say it was...

*sunglasses*

... the luck of the draw

YYYYEEEEAAAAHHHH!!!!