Thanqol Learns To Draw!

[Thanqol]

Day 58: Speak Softly, Love

Love Mafia movies. Love doing silhouettes.

I may have used the most counter-intuitive process for this ever.

Also: Figured out what the transparency slider does and why my 2B pencil tool was looking like ass.

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Time: 1 Hour
Music: Speak Softly, Love

[Glass Mouse]

Whoa, awesome! That looks really, really good.

Playing with very heavy shadows is a great exercise. Do this more! Way too many newbies are too timid with shading and thus spend way too much time not knowing how to do it correctly.

[SiuiS]

first, I need to make it clear that I have bent over backwards to avoid swearing, on these forums and recently in my life. It's a pony thing, but also a 'use only the necessary emphasis' bit.

Day 58: Speak Softly, Love

Love Mafia movies. Love doing silhouettes.

I may have used the most counter-intuitive process for this ever.

Also: Figured out what the transparency slider does and why my 2B pencil tool was looking like ass.

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Time: 1 Hour
Music: Speak Softly, Love

Holy ****ing DAMN, son. I can't ****in' process this. I really can't. I mean, ****.

I can't do anything right now, but you've got a convert. I will get a computer, a tablet, an art program. I will harass you for a list of tutorials. I will schedule time to learn. Because your progress is the fastest I have ever seen.

So you get a digital finger painting.

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Whoa, awesome! That looks really, really good.

Playing with very heavy shadows is a great exercise. Do this more! Way too many newbies are too timid with shading and thus spend way too much time not knowing how to do it correctly.

yes, this. Especially the 'Woah, awesome' part.

-

And now for the reason I came here, an old half-finished sketch I thought you could enjoy.

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You can see a lot of the skeleton, which helps understand 3d placement. You can probably get a sense for the roundness of the pony involved. And you can see the fingers in the foreground which look like sloppy, long monkey toes.

That last bit is what is really important though. See, I can draw pony allthe live long day. I can't draw people anymore.

I rely too much on 'personal style' to carry me. I have a good-but-not-good-enough handle on the basics. I remember a pseudo argument I had in this thread, where someone thought I was justifying laziness for style choice. Well, their reason for that being a bad thing was right. Look upon what could have been a decent image, and despair; for there go you if you forsake hard work for sloth and visual short-cuts.

Continue to rock the art scene, Thanqol. You are doing good things.

[Thanqol]

Whoa, awesome! That looks really, really good.

Playing with very heavy shadows is a great exercise. Do this more! Way too many newbies are too timid with shading and thus spend way too much time not knowing how to do it correctly.

I love heavy shadows and silhouettes. If I thought I could learn everything I wanted to learn by just doing those, I'd do nothing but those. It's such an inherently powerful style.

first, I need to make it clear that I have bent over backwards to avoid swearing, on these forums and recently in my life. It's a pony thing, but also a 'use only the necessary emphasis' bit.

Holy ****ing DAMN, son. I can't ****in' process this. I really can't. I mean, ****.

I can't do anything right now, but you've got a convert. I will get a computer, a tablet, an art program. I will harass you for a list of tutorials. I will schedule time to learn. Because your progress is the fastest I have ever seen.

So you get a digital finger painting.

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I'm blushing so hard now you have no idea.

yes, this. Especially the 'Woah, awesome' part.

-

And now for the reason I came here, an old half-finished sketch I thought you could enjoy.

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You can see a lot of the skeleton, which helps understand 3d placement. You can probably get a sense for the roundness of the pony involved. And you can see the fingers in the foreground which look like sloppy, long monkey toes.

That last bit is what is really important though. See, I can draw pony allthe live long day. I can't draw people anymore.

I rely too much on 'personal style' to carry me. I have a good-but-not-good-enough handle on the basics. I remember a pseudo argument I had in this thread, where someone thought I was justifying laziness for style choice. Well, their reason for that being a bad thing was right. Look upon what could have been a decent image, and despair; for there go you if you forsake hard work for sloth and visual short-cuts.

Continue to rock the art scene, Thanqol. You are doing good things.[/color]

Ah yes, I remember this picture! In your defence, fingers are hard.

Day 59: The House is in the Doctor

This was much more challenging than yesterday's because I was working off a photograph and not an existing silhouette, meaning I had to figure out where the shadows went manually. It was still a lot of fun to do; I reckon I did well on the irises in particular. (Hugh Laurie has an enormous forehead)

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Time: 1 Hour 15 Minutes
Music: Certamente

[Thanqol]

Day 59a: Step Outside

Finally started messing around in Photoshop. It's got a user interface akin to Microsoft Excel with a scary face drawn on it, but after googling for tutorials and shortcuts I've started to be able to find the tools I need. And I can already see how it's going to be the most useful thing ever. Corel was a great starting point; it has a beautiful interface, is functional and non-intimidating, but Photoshop seems to have everything it can do and more.

So have day 1 of my conversion to Photoshop: Some clouds! Kinda boring, but now I know how to do clouds!

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[Domochevsky]

I don't think you know how to do clouds yet, actually. Try harder.

[Thanqol]

I don't think you know how to do clouds yet, actually. Try harder.

Well, let me phrase that slightly differently. Now I know how to do clouds that don't look like this:

[Glass Mouse]

I think those clouds are a big step forward. You've got the light fluffiness of summer clouds down. One thing to remember, though, is that clouds shouldn't have an outline.

And that Hugh drawing looks really good. You're rocking the silhoutte look.
Next step is working with different degrees of shadows. Try drawing a face with only 0%, 25%, 75% and 100% black to help you out. Go different shadow levels and highlights!

[Thanqol]

Day 60: Creative Deficiencies

Two months. As good a time for any as a retrospective, really.

A couple of months ago I was making jokes about how bad my drawing skills were. I illustrated my case with the following image: The Pone

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Yeah. I don't think it's possible to get any worse than that.

And so I continued, content in my terribleness at art. If I really wanted a picture, surely it was easier to commission a guy than learn how to draw myself? This attitude held strong right up until I did this picture.

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Still godawful, as we can all agree. But something about that picture. Some look in her eyes, something about that smile, or stance, or colour scheme - something struck me about it. It was an 80 second MS paint abomination, but there was a soul in there. That wasn't just a demonstration of my failure. That was a character. That was a character trapped inside the body of a terrible artist. And she was okay with that.

That picture's really what drove me into this project, and I'm so glad it did, because I don't regret this for a second. It's been tough to update every single day, and there have been many times when I've considered making excuses or doing some cop-out picture. It's hard. It's hard, hard, hard, hard hard and it's also hard to determine if you're making progress or just imagining you are.

But, you know whenever anyone asks anyone what the secret to anything is? Cooking, drawing, writing, playing basketball or Starcraft, or whatever? They will always, always say 'practise, practise, practise'. And everyone smiles, nods, and assumes they're being modest about their natural gifts. But they're telling the absolute truth. Sixty days, sixty days of hard work and see how far I've come from the above MS Paint Abominations. And I can't even imagine where I'll be in a year.

So that does not segue at all into today's picture. Photoshop's fill tool had this weird thing where it didn't fill totally, and instead left a bit of an outline, probably due to the brush type I was using. Rather than figuring out how to fix it, I ran with it and produced something cool.

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Time: 1 Hour
Music: Calma

[Thanqol]

Day 61: A Long Story

Damn it, Raz_Fox.

(Photoshop is really, really weird to use; pressure on the stylus has no change on the lines. The entire thing feels really slippery. Considering doing base elements in Corel and any fine tuning in Photoshop.

Photoshop is utterly precise, but you have to know exactly what you want)

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Time: 1 1/2 Hours
Music: Renegade

[EsperDerek]

Well, let me phrase that slightly differently. Now I know how to do clouds that don't look like this:

(Very old Video Game Joke:)
Color it green, bring it down to ground level, and you have a bush!

Day 60: Creative Deficiencies

Two months. As good a time for any as a retrospective, really.

A couple of months ago I was making jokes about how bad my drawing skills were. I illustrated my case with the following image: The Pone

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Yeah. I don't think it's possible to get any worse than that.

And so I continued, content in my terribleness at art. If I really wanted a picture, surely it was easier to commission a guy than learn how to draw myself? This attitude held strong right up until I did this picture.
But, you know whenever anyone asks anyone what the secret to anything is? Cooking, drawing, writing, playing basketball or Starcraft, or whatever? They will always, always say 'practise, practise, practise'. And everyone smiles, nods, and assumes they're being modest about their natural gifts. But they're telling the absolute truth. Sixty days, sixty days of hard work and see how far I've come from the above MS Paint Abominations. And I can't even imagine where I'll be in a year.

I dunno, man, I don't think anything will truly be able to top The Pone.
Seriously, though, your advancement has been obvious and steady, and you, indeed, should be quite proud of what you've accomplished.

Day 61: A Long Story

Damn it, Raz_Fox.

(Photoshop is really, really weird to use; pressure on the stylus has no change on the lines. The entire thing feels really slippery. Considering doing base elements in Corel and any fine tuning in Photoshop.

Photoshop is utterly precise, but you have to know exactly what you want)

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Time: 1 1/2 Hours
Music: Renegade

I very much approve of this picture. Ahh, bliss. A little lower, please!

[Prime32]

I suggest going vector.

Draw the basic picture, then place some paths over it and adjust the curves until they fit. You can then have Photoshop stroke the paths for a cleaner set of lines.

[Thanqol]

I suggest going vector.

Draw the basic picture, then place some paths over it and adjust the curves until they fit. You can then have Photoshop stroke the paths for a cleaner set of lines.

Oh god, vectoring. I'm taking the grand meander through every single art process and tool.

Actually, sounds like it could be a lot of help, and I had no idea it was something that could be done in Photoshop (I thought it was an Inkscape thing). I was looking around for a tool that'd do something similar, but Photoshop's incomprehensible interface was absolutely no help. Thanks for pointing that out, I'll take a look at it tomorrow!

[Prime32]

To clarify, I mean stroke the paths on another layer then hide the original.

If it hasn't been mentioned, the common digital artist process:

1. Draw a pic, traditionally or digitally.
2. Vectorise it for clean B/W lineart.
3. Put the lineart on the top layer and set it to Multiply (effectively the white parts become transparent, the black parts stay black).
4. Put a few more layers under it, and use these to fill in colour. To avoid gaps you'll generally want to fill in each character/object with a base colour, then go over it on higher layers.
5. Add light/shadows.
6. Colour/blend the lineart to match the lighting and surrounding colours.

[Kaytara]

To clarify, that is the common digital art process for a picture with lineart. If you're looking to do a more realistic one with no lineart, then you only need the sketch to remember where the boundaries are supposed to go, and if you have a reasonably clean sketch you can skip the vectorising in step 2.

That mafiosi image is looking evilly magnificent. :D I especially like the ear. Weird but true.

[Domochevsky]

Personally i'd advise against using vectoring. It doesn't add anything except construction work to your picture for minimal gain (scaling, to be specific, which for most pictures isn't important). Clean lineart is something you should be able to do on your own. Don't let a program take that from you.

[SiuiS]

Personally i'd advise against using vectoring. It doesn't add anything except construction work to your picture for minimal gain (scaling, to be specific, which for most pictures isn't important). Clean lineart is something you should be able to do on your own. Don't let a program take that from you.

Seconded. The whole point of this shebang is to avoid short cuts that cost you skill in the long run.
So learning to vector solely to make good looking end products means you wot be able to draw good looking end products.

[TheLaughingMan]

Hey Thanqol! Just wanted to chime in with how great your progress is. Keep it up!

As far as advice goes, here's my two cents: Try Sketchbook Pro! It's the program I always use, and my drawings usually come out half-decent for it. (Use the marker tool! )

For more general advice, remember to make a skeleton (figuratively speaking) before proceeding, and to try and use any shape tools you might have for it That way you get a better understanding of where the pieces fall into place. Remember that as a technique, it should only be used as much as it needs to, and if you can draw well enough without it then you should cease.


Here are some important anatomy tips, regarding humans:

*Legs are at least as long as arms.

*Eyes should be about one eye apart from each other.

*Arms should extend slightly past the waistline.

*The hands should only ever be as big as the face.

*Males have more jagged features than females, primarily face-wise.

You can also try measuring proportions via ruler, and keep them in mind if, say, you have a muse of some sort you wish to replicate.

Hope none of that's redundant.

[Thanqol]

I'm more than happy to not learn how to vector; I've got enough things on the plate right now I'll stick with the linework. I'll shelve it for now and work on more basic skills and maybe come back to it when it'd be a supplement for my skill rather than a replacement for it.

Thanks for the reference points, LaughingMan; it's always great to have specific pointers like that. Those kind of quotable rules stick in my mind.

Day 62: BRILLIANT!

This worked out well! I'm going to put colour aside for a while until I've got a more satisfactory method of applying it. Overall, I don't hate this - the hand is a mess but it's less of a mess than my hands have historically been, and it was a tricky position. Also it looks suitably deranged.

Should also do some work on mouths (damn mouths!) and teeth.

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Time: 1 Hour
Music: The Ballad Of Spring Hill

[Ajadea]

Nice! Very nice indeed, and very deranged. The pinky finger needs work, but otherwise I think it's great and expressive.

[Thanqol]

Day 63: Android Hell.

Was absolutely exhausted from a tiring day of work, so I made a typical trademark dumb decision and tried to draw a somewhat simple geometric shape for tonight's project: A hexagram! Cue 30 minutes of frustration while discovering that geometric shapes are really, really hard to draw precisely by hand.

Had a bit of a mess around with the background details, experimenting with a few different things. The colour scheme of the wires worked, I'll keep it in mind for future pictures. The shine isn't perfect on the gem but I didn't have the time to go over my tutorial pages today.

Oh yes, and university starts again next week. There may be some days when I won't have access to my PC right until the evening and, thusly, minimal time for computerised drawing. Going to carry around my meatspace sketchbook and return to pencil drawing if it comes to that.

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Time: 45 Mins
Music: The Device Has Been Modified:

[Recaiden]

That is definitely a Shining Didecahexahedron. I don't know where you're getting this 'hexagram' idea. but it's cool.

[Thanqol]

That is definitely a Shining Didecahexahedron. I don't know where you're getting this 'hexagram' idea. but it's cool.

I went into this with the intention of drawing a hexagram. What I got was another matter.

[Thanqol]

Day 64: This Statement Is False

Sketches! Super duper rough versions, trying a whole bunch of things and looks for one of my characters. It was great fun and low stress so I might do a few more of these. It's also good to try doing the same character over and over, gets a better feel for their shape. Some of these are good, some of these are bad - but I do like the bottom right hand one. That's the character in a nutshell.

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Time: 1 1/2 Hours
Music: Icarus

[SiuiS]

Thanqol is a jerk. I must declare this.

I'm thinking in terms of digital skills now. I'm going to have to by a blue lead drafting pencil to continue drawing, because I don't have access to layers when sketching on paper.

On the upside, I still have rather decent compositional skills. Sure, I think of things a little too Egyptian style, everyone facing either stark right or stark left, but depth and weight are coming together, so I guess I haveto publicly thank Thanqol for kicking me back into drawing.

So thanks berk, for being a rat-bastard and also an in-progress tutorial

I went into this with the intention of drawing a hexagram. What I got was another matter.

Yeah, geometry is hard. Try doing a five point star or a cog/gear that looks just as good when rotated about ten degrees.
It's one of my life's unatainable goals to draw a star that looks good while rotating freely.

[Thanqol]

Thanqol is a jerk. I must declare this.

I always introduce myself as "I'm Thanqol and sometimes I'm a jerk" for a reason.

I'm thinking in terms of digital skills now. I'm going to have to by a blue lead drafting pencil to continue drawing, because I don't have access to layers when sketching on paper.

On the upside, I still have rather decent compositional skills. Sure, I think of things a little too Egyptian style, everyone facing either stark right or stark left, but depth and weight are coming together, so I guess I haveto publicly thank Thanqol for kicking me back into drawing.

So thanks berk, for being a rat-bastard and also an in-progress tutorial

It's a hard job, but someone's got to do it.

Yeah, geometry is hard. Try doing a five point star or a cog/gear that looks just as good when rotated about ten degrees.
It's one of my life's unatainable goals to draw a star that looks good while rotating freely.[/color]

My eyes bleed when I even consider the concept.

Day 65: VOTE DOFAD. VOTE VICTORY

Let's show Johnny Alien a good Swiss uppercut!

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Time: 1 1/2 Hours
Music: Keep Me Hanging On

[Thanqol]

Day 66: This Message Brought To You By Our Sponsors

Done in Photoshop. Still getting used to that thing. Need more practise drawing ray guns, tried a bunch of effects, experimented with different tools. Finding a model for this stance was oddly difficult so I did this one freehand.

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Time: 1 Hour 15 Minutes
Music: Torvus Bog (Metal)

[Domochevsky]

Needs more hands and a better grip on that handle.
(Way too easy to hide hands between objects in various weird poses.)

[Thanqol]

Needs more hands and a better grip on that handle.
(Way too easy to hide hands between objects in various weird poses.)

Urgh, yes, I completely slacked off on hands today. I'll do 'em right tomorrow, swear it.

[Thanqol]

Day 67: The Swiss Uppercut

The main challenge today was a dynamic pose, which turned out all right, as well as the beginnings of a colour scheme. The picture is incomplete because I ran out of time. That better-hands thing half panned out; I was going to harvest some reference pictures and work on them some more but alas, meatspace concerns.

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Time: 1 1/2 Hours
Music: Ritual