ArtSpots Forum Group - Critique & Redline

Over all Critique needed - WolfReign05

Fri, 16 May 2008 00:43:23 -0000

That's a great help thx. Yeah, I think it's very hard to read what the picture is supposed to be saying too. He was supposed to be slouching on the chair and snoozing. Didn't pull that off too well, and I noticed most of the anatomy issues but just didn't know how to fix them so if you don't mind, a redline would be a great help. I'll keep an eye out for the shadows and am still trying to work out how to lay out the composition for this pic.

Just yer normal critique here - Jerry BlueSky

Thu, 15 May 2008 22:08:30 -0000

This is my "self redline" I did away from home straight onto the digital file. Hopefully the way I coded the colours isn't too confusing- red is just the body and anatomy and dark blue is the clothes. I think it looks a lot better already and so did the friend whose house I was staying over at (and whose computer I used to do this) but you guys probably know better. And yeah, I gave her more hips; as I get bigger, she gets bigger, heh. (The original drawing is just less than a year old.) Hope the legs aren't too crazy...and yeah, the shoulder was pretty weird once I looked at it. Whoops. So, yeah, I'm posting this so Thorn can see how I got on my own trying to go without a visual guide of what I did wrong. I always have a hard time going straight from text, not 'cause I'm lazy, I even have a hard time visualizing scenes when reading. Just a weird thing of mine. Kay babbled long enough sorry about the lag I've been buuuuuussssssssssy.

Over all Critique needed - Nocte

Thu, 15 May 2008 19:55:16 -0000

Anatomy: There are a couple of isolated problems with the anatomy (e.g. narrow shoulders, short and heavy arm without a clearly defined wrist or elbow), but I think the most important thing to work on is the entire pose. Right now it's doesn't read very well; I'm not sure if he's holding the chair, or if his arms are just dangling down. Or whether he's sitting with a straight back or slumped. Or how the head and the shoulders are positioned. Perhaps finding a good reference photo would help a lot. (And if you like, I could redline it.) Shading: There are three things you could do to improve the shading. The most important one is to be consistent with your light source. For example, the rear leg of the chair casts a shadow that suggests there's a light source behind the character. The highlight on the arm looks like there's light coming from the side. The rest of the body has only a sliver of shadow, suggesting there's another light source just to the right of the viewer. Another thing you could do is add more cast shadows. For example, his left leg would cast a shadow on the tail and part of the other leg. Or perhaps his arm would cast one on the chair and on his body. Same thing with his trousers and his feet. Also, don't be afraid to add more contrast. Some deeper shadows will give the drawing more punch. Composition: A good rule is not to let your subject touch the edge. So you could either add more room at the bottom, or cut off a good chunk. Another rule is the "rule of thirds"; instead of centering everything, move it to the left or right 1/3rd of the paper. Or to the top or bottom 1/3rd. Also, pay attention to the perspective when placing objects in a scene. The vanishing points of the chair and the room suggest a very high horizon, so the viewer is looking down. This also means the foreshortening of the character will be different (for example you'd have to foreshorten his shins instead of his thighs.) I hope I could be of help. :)

Need help with inking. - Sorinnt

Thu, 15 May 2008 16:18:42 -0000

i just found out...........i cant put a smart vector object into photoshop elements.....and photoshop cs2 costs over £500..........can anyone find any cheaper price for it.....???

Over all Critique needed - WolfReign05

Wed, 14 May 2008 20:29:17 -0000

I'm mainly focused on anatomy problems but I'm sure the shading could be done much better and the composition looks like it could be done better as well. Any advice and information is appreciated.

Need help with inking. - Drakenhart

Wed, 14 May 2008 14:46:49 -0000

*bookmarks* Thank you!

Need help with inking. - Metsys

Mon, 12 May 2008 18:10:20 -0000

I just stumbled on this today and thought I'd add it to the topic: http://www.itchy-animation.co.uk/lines.htm It's tips about inking in various programs. The artist also compares inking with Photoshop, Illustrator, Painter, and Sketchbook.

Need help with inking. - Sorinnt

Sat, 10 May 2008 21:42:34 -0000

thanks...i'll go try it then.....imma bit short on the cash at the mo...

Need help with inking. - Metsys

Sat, 10 May 2008 17:37:07 -0000

Illustrator is an Adobe product, part of the CS3 suite. If you are a student you can get Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign for $400. Check with your school though because some college bookstores manage to sell it for less. Or, if you already own Photoshop CS3, Illustrator by itself costs $200. Academicsuperstore.com is probably the best place to get software with a student discount. I'm pretty sure you can also download a trial from the Adobe website to give it a try.

Need help with inking. - Sorinnt

Sat, 10 May 2008 17:27:29 -0000

I would really like to know where i can find this illustrator.....looks as though it would help my art a lot

Color help again. ^.^ - KoOkY!

Sat, 10 May 2008 04:18:24 -0000

No no, definitely helpful! :) And he's wearing boxers actually, or they're supposed to be. Hehe. But yeah I'm very timid with shadows sometimes, same way I'm timid with poses. I do a lot of kinda stiff standing there with limbs in different positions type of poses. I need to like OVER emphasize gestures in order to train myself to be a bit more loose. Same way I should probably over emphasize the shading too. Kinda go way off to the extreme opposite direction from where I'm at now so I can figure out where the mid-way point between the two should be if I'm making sense. (it's late) Hehe. As for shading to get the texture of fur across....youch that's hard to do I think but will work on it! Need to update photoshop so I can use some of the fur texture brushes floating around out there. Thanks for the feedback! :)

Color help again. ^.^ - Celty

Fri, 09 May 2008 13:54:51 -0000

It's looking really nice, Kooky. To be perfectly honest, I'm kind of at a loss when it comes to color too. For more toonish drawings such as this one I usually just cel-shade. However, if you are going to keep with this method then I suggest being a little more bold with the shadows. You've figured out your light source, which is good, but there are certain places where your darks should be..really, really dark. The folds in his shorts, for instance. Light and shadow help convey form and texture, and right now the shorts look like they're just a blue part of his body because they're shaded in a similar way. I'm assuming they're denim shorts? If this is the case, make sure to not over-do the wrinkles, as the material tends to be stiffer than cotton or silk and therefore bunches in more blocky shapes. As for the fur, keep in mind when shading that the surface covering his body isn't smooth and rounded like our skin, it's more irregular. The shading would have to reflect this, putting jagged shadows and highlights in here and there. Anyway, not sure if that helped too much, but those are my two cents at least. Good luck! (edited for typos)

Need help with inking. - Metsys

Thu, 08 May 2008 06:20:05 -0000

Illustrator is REALLY good with cell shading. If you use calligraphic brushes to do line drawings and want to quickly fill it in using Illustrator, select all your lines, click on Object > Expand Appearance (you need to this otherwise you'll loose your thick and thin lines when you convert it to a Live Paint Group). Then press K to select the Live Paint Bucket, make sure all your line art is still selected then click on it to covert it to a Live Paint Group, and now you can start filling in areas with the currently selected color (default is transparent so pick a new color). Also, since your line art isn't just strokes anymore, you can use the Live Paint tool to change the color of your line art too. The now solid lines will still have the original stroke line in the middle, so you'll have to color both sides of the line unless you fix that. To fix it (if you want to) select the middle line by using the direct select tool (shortcut A), and then press delete twice (once for the arc and the second time for the entire line). Holding down the left mouse button when you paint lets you fill multiple areas at once. Once you are done with that you can expand the Live Paint and start using the knife tool to separate the filled areas for two-tone shading—or three, or four, however many tones you want. There could be a more elegant way of doing this because I've found rendering bugs when you have two shapes that butt up against each other which is what happens when you use the knife tool; overlapping shapes don't do that. You can start using gradients too if you want. If you are really adventurous you can use gradient meshes, which are really cool.

Need help with inking. - KoOkY!

Thu, 08 May 2008 05:25:06 -0000

Thanks Metsys! I'd been wanting to learn how to ink in Illustrator and will check out the tutorials once I get some time to spare. Busy week ahead. :P Has to be faster than PS pen tool right? Or at least will be more dynamic with the line widths. Hehe. And yeah that's some intense illustrator work under that Cris Vector link, whew! Looks like Illustrator would be great for cell shading though.

Need help with inking. - Metsys

Wed, 07 May 2008 21:53:38 -0000

Thanks Vizon. I remember hating Illustrator too, for illustrating with anyway. It's great for graphic design where things are so accurately and deliberately placed, but when it comes to creating images quickly it's not really suited for it, depending on the style of course. That's why I rarely use Illustrator for my illustration work unless I need to add typography or logos or something like that. I don't do the cartoony style often, but when I do I most certainly use Illustrator for that. It really boils down to the style you like, how much time it takes you to do it, and how much you get paid for it. Luckily that inking thing I showed is super quick and easy to do, and there's even quicker things you can do with Illustrator if you like solid color fills and two tone shading (like Live Paint and the knife tool). I have seen people do some amazing work with Illustrator, like this lunatic for example: http://www.crisvector.com/ Now there's someone I wish would give a demo. I can't imagine how much time goes into those, but it's amazing stuff nonetheless.

Need help with inking. - Vizon

Wed, 07 May 2008 04:41:15 -0000

Wow nice tutorial. You should post it in the "tutorials" forum also so that even more people can see it. I knew a lot of the hot keys and techniques you use, but some of them I didn't know (like how to use the lock transparency feature). Makes me wish I had Illustrator now...a little (this is a big step for me as I've hated it for a long time - so frustrating to learn).

Need help with inking. - Metsys

Wed, 07 May 2008 01:43:05 -0000

Yay! It works now! Both videos are listed here: http://www.vimeo.com/metsystutorials Direct link to Part 1: http://www.vimeo.com/982474 Direct link to Part 2: http://www.vimeo.com/982847 The new files worked great, and splitting them up into 15 minute chunks helped too. Next time people won't have to wait so long now that I know what works. Although for a video this length it still takes about 4 hours from final edit to it being available on Vimeo. Yeah, I was really used to using Vimeo for short videos. Anyway, I'm extremely happy with the results. The video quality for the HD stream is really good. I'm going to do all of my other video tutorials this way from now on: no mirrors, no torrents, HD, streamable, downloadable, and I don't have to host them. I already liked Vimeo before, but—wow, this service rocks. And I got the new Iris album today, so I'm in a pretty good mood. :)

Need help with inking. - Metsys

Tue, 06 May 2008 07:15:34 -0000

Oh, and here's how far I got the video tutorial before I went ahead and finished the image today. So there's a little teaser for ya until that video finishes converting.

Need help with inking. - Metsys

Tue, 06 May 2008 07:10:19 -0000

Yeah, the video is stuck on 11%. Hopefully it'll get fixed by tomorrow morning. Just in case something went really wrong, I uploaded the file again under a slightly different title hoping that at least one of them will finish. It's almost midnight now and well past peak hours, so I shouldn't have to wait through the queue for the video to start converting. EDIT: And neither of the videos worked. I'm going to upload the video in a different format. I've been thinking about showing some of my other stuff. I'm kind of an outsider and don't have any anthro art that I can show that isn't studio related. And even though I'm not hiding anything I'm still debating on how much I like being anonymous :). I was thinking about participating in the trading post when I have time and showing some original stuff here and there. But yeah, I have been thinking about it. If nothing else there's the squirrels image from earlier in the thread, and the following image is from the tutorial after an hours worth of work without having to give a demonstration while working. It's tricky illustrating and teaching at the same time, and after I finished the video I wanted to at least put another hour into the drawing—which I probably should have done a time lapse of. Ack. Well, all I really did was fix a few lines (and the cross eyes), separate the hair, skin and shirt fills into different layers so it would be easier to color, and did the usual painting techniques for the background. So you didn't really miss anything unless I don't do a video on painting. :)

Need help with inking. - KoOkY!

Tue, 06 May 2008 03:38:49 -0000

*pouts 'n waits seeing it's only 11% done* :) Can't wait to check it out. Do you have a gallery of your work somewhere also? Been curious to see some of what you've done.

Need help with inking. - Metsys

Tue, 06 May 2008 03:04:48 -0000

Okay, I recorded and edited the video yesterday and I've already uploaded it to Vimeo. Unfortunetly it's taking them a long time to encode it. The fact that it's 34 minutes long probably has something to do with it. The video is part software tutorial and part demonstration because I wanted Fr0styRyan to see most of what I was doing, and I didn't rehearse it either so aside from some editing and time lapse it's as short as I can get it. Anyway, there should be some good info in there so I hope it helps with inking and coloring. EDIT: New URL: http://www.vimeo.com/metsystutorials Make sure that the icon in the video player is set to "HD is ON." You can then watch it right in the web browser at full resolution; just click on the full screen button and enjoy. And don't worry, these videos don't take much time to put together. I've been doing these for a while now, so feel free to ask for a demo at any time.

Color help again. ^.^ - KoOkY!

Tue, 06 May 2008 00:49:36 -0000

Picture just finished tonight and putting it up for some feedback maybe. ^.^ I'm trying to improve but my coloring keeps looking the same. I did stop using greys for my shading though, going for dark blue usually in more natural lighting and I think that did help but am I using TOO much blue now? Are shadows deep enough? Now and then I do try for some texture like Vizon was trying to show me but....it's really hard to do. :D And looks iffy when I do a more toonish picture like this guy. So I dunno, I guess any comments on a direction or something would be cool. Here tried using solid brush instead of the soft airbrushes I usually use. Not sure if made much difference the way I did it. Hmmms.

Female anatomy help - Lone Wolf28

Mon, 05 May 2008 22:22:07 -0000

Cool, thanks Kynliod, I did'nt notice that before.The leg will be fairly easy for me to correct,since I was using carbon-based ink. Same for the arm,too. :) On a side note,how is this drawing remininsent of Adam-Ant? ~The Lone Wolf

Female anatomy help - Sidney Eileen

Sun, 04 May 2008 08:54:12 -0000

You're definitely making some good progress. Keep drawing stuff like this, and I'll have to break out my old Adam Ant albums. ;) I agree with Kyn that the right arm is a bit long. The elbow is usually about even with the bottom of the rib cage. In this drawing it's at about the level of the top of the pelvis. The other thing that jumps out at me is that the head seems a bit small, but I could be wrong on that. Head size on anthros is one of those things that I have trouble with sometimes....

Need help with inking. - Metsys

Sun, 04 May 2008 07:23:52 -0000

Yeah, I'll make a video showing how that works tomorrow—or the day after if I turn into a perfectionist. I would like to show an actual drawing to demo with, which I think would help Fr0styRyan a lot. I did get a chance to do some screencasting tests at 1280x720 today and I'm quite pleased with the results. I haven't recorded videos at that resolution before, so it's good to know my computer can handle it. However, I just barely moved so I haven't unpacked all my audio equipment yet, so I'll have to settle with talking into a headset.

Need help with inking. - KoOkY!

Sun, 04 May 2008 06:13:22 -0000

Wow! That seems a bit complex though too, can't you just save it out as a .PSD file and open it up in Photoshop? Can just keep the inks on a different layer to do whatever you're going to be doing with them. Though it's been years since I tried bringing anything from Illustrator over to PS so maybe isn't as easy as I think. But sure I'm always up for checking out new tutorials if you wanna make one. :)

Need help with inking. - Metsys

Sat, 03 May 2008 16:22:59 -0000

One thing that I've tried that works really well is doing the inking using the brush tool in Illustrator, then copy and paste it into Photoshop as a Smart Object, create a clipping mask, and then I can color the lines using all the fun Photoshop tools that I'm familiar with. Filling in is really easy too, just use the magic wand tool, set it to Sample All Layers, create a new action with a function key so you can quickly expand the selection by a pixel or two to get rid of the halo, and then fill it in. Once you filled the character in you can then lock the transparency on the fill layer so you don't have to be careful about not painting outside of the character, letting you do whatever kind of crazy shading you want. The really sweet thing about this is that you can scale all three of those layers together and not loose any resolution in your line drawing, because it's still vector even in Photoshop. Fr0styRyan, I'd actually suggest giving Illustrator inking a try, assuming that you have a copy. You might really like it for inking. And I really should do a video tutorial on this stuff. :)

Need help with inking. - KoOkY!

Sat, 03 May 2008 15:59:51 -0000

Sudan Red said: Illustrator is great for inking! KoOkY is quite right in saying that it smooths out your lines considerably. Added bonus is that you can still fiddle with the curves etc to get the lines exactly right. :) I have a pretty steady hand, but I have an old clunker of a tablet that skips a beat every now and again, so I cheat a little!

I need to give that a shot again. Takes me about 40-45 minutes to ink just a single character using the pen tool in Photoshop and don't even get variable line widths with that unless you go back and futz around with it and taper the ends with the eraser or something. Hehe. Haven't used Illustrator in years though but has got to be faster than what I'm doing.

Need help with inking. - Metsys

Sat, 03 May 2008 15:42:23 -0000

I tried the 5 pixel brush on a letter size canvas and it seemed like it was plenty thick enough. On your drawing it looks like the line width is smaller though. On the left side of the head the line work actually looks pretty good. It looks like you did each line in one smooth stroke. The shirt and arm don't though, and I'm assuming that it's because the lines are longer so you had to use the small short lines trick. It look like the lines that you were less confident about are the ones that are thinner, so don't be afraid to use full pressure even though you might mess up. I'd say just keep on practicing and experimenting to find out what works best. The trick is to make your lines look like they were done using one stroke even though they may or may not be. So I usually switch between big long strokes and small ones depending on what line I have to draw. And I use the eraser frequently to clean up my lines, so it's okay to overshoot a curve or make the line too thick from drawing over it too much (one thing I'll do is keep on drawing the line until one side is where I want it, and then carefully remove the thickness of the line on the other side using quick strokes with my eraser). So, you can just erase the part that you don't want at any time. And practice doing as many long strokes as you can, because when you get good at it it'll save you lots of time. And if long strokes are hard but short ones are not, because you have to move your whole hand to do them, just zoom out so drawing the curve is easier. And again, thin lines are harder to be accurate and clean with than thick lines. Thin lines leave you very little room for error, especially when you are drawing over them. As for rules of line drawings: objects that are closer or overlapping are going to have thicker lines, objects that you want to give more contrast will have thicker lines, and if a line needs to be darker to represent shadow then it should be be thicker too. Use thin lines for small details and object that you don't want to draw too much attention too. It's also okay for some lines to not be drawn at all. These are called suggested lines because your mind fills in the blank. Also, flowing from thick to thin mid-line is cool looking too (the image you linked to does that around the leg). So that's basically what I think about when doing line art. Here's a good summary that someone else put together about line art: http://www.itchstudios.com/psg/art_tut.htm#line_art But yeah, it takes some practice. I took me about a year to really get comfortable inking with a tablet. Since you want to do inking instead of just pencil-like line drawings, which is why I use the quick small strokes a lot, just keep on practicing with big long strokes when you can and then use the short ones when it's not working out because they do take longer to draw and are harder to clean up compared to the pencil-like lines. If you are interested I could probably do a video showing my process. I'm experimenting with 720p HD screencasts so I can put them on Vimeo at full resolution. So it might be a fun trial run.

Need help with inking. - Fr0styRyan

Sat, 03 May 2008 07:37:00 -0000

Thanks for all the detailed replies. Sorry I couldn't get back to you sooner. I had school matters to deal with. I've been experimenting some more with the fast strokes, and they're not as shaky as they used to be after a bunch of tries, but I still need to improve on my aiming accuracy. I might give the Cintique a try, but for now, I have do things with the Graphire 4 or Intuos 3. This all brings me to my next point: line weights. The inking style I want to try to master is a not very thick one. I'm currently using brush sizes of around 5 pixels at 8.5x11in, 300dpi, for inking out characters spread onto the canvas. Not sure if that's too small, what do you think? Super thick line styles aren't really my thing since I tend to focus a lot on light and shades. Something like this is what I'd aim for: http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/7276/jerbipose02xb7.jpg But anyway, here's a very rough sketch of an oldish drawing. The lighting's coming along, but I think the line thickness completely sucks hard. I don't know when and where to make things thicker or thinner, and the issues I mentioned in my first post wasn't helping. Soo...critique on line weights is what I need. If you could point out the rules of line weights, it would help, and of course, I would like it if you could point out the linework that's wrong on the image I posted.

Female anatomy help - kynliod

Fri, 02 May 2008 20:34:23 -0000

It looks better than the original, definitely an improvement. My only crit off the bat is that her left arm seems a bit short compared to the right. Also, the left leg is closer than the right, but the right leg is thicker. The nearer leg should be close to the same size, if not slightly larger.

Female anatomy help - Lone Wolf28

Fri, 02 May 2008 00:28:50 -0000

ok, here's the slightly altered version of the first sketch that you redlined.(I know,I know...the lighting persective is a little off, but I'm still working on it.) Anyway, here it is, the partially-finished version that I went over with pen/brush and ink....did I mention I like drawing with ink? hmmmm....guess I did'nt ...ah, well here it is anyway. :) ~The Lone Wolf

Two-character redline - Farasha SilverSand

Thu, 01 May 2008 01:09:23 -0000

It's been a very long time since I did any sort of two-character picture, but now that I've gotten a little better at muzzle anatomy, I thought I'd give it another shot. Apologies for the quality, I'm lacking a scanner right now so I have to take pictures of my work. The title of the piece will probably be "Eye Contact." The scene is a club or a rave, I haven't decided yet. Basically what I'm worried about is anatomy mistakes and the way the characters fit together.

Female anatomy help - Lone Wolf28

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 21:56:29 -0000

so, the proportions are adequate?

Female anatomy help - Sidney Eileen

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 18:28:06 -0000

Looking great! Also, no offense taken. I'd actually recommend finding multiple nude reference books. I have a couple myself, and they really help.

Female anatomy help - Lone Wolf28

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 16:49:04 -0000

Hey, thanks for the reference sketches, Sidney. They help alot! :) Though,no offense intended, I do not realy believe that I need an entire reference book on the nude human figure.... There is plenty relalistic examples in everyday life,movies graphic novels, whatever.... anyway(now that I'm done ranting), here are a few of the many gesture sketches I've been doing to figure out the female-anthro anatomy. Thanks again! ~The Lone Wolf

Female anatomy help - Sidney Eileen

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 19:23:38 -0000

Kyn, I am one of those unusually broad-shouldered women as well, such that I sometimes have trouble finding jackets that fit. I should have given the skinny guy on the right broader shoulders. He looks kinda like he has super-tense shoulders the way I drew that. ;) Another interesting thing to note about female hip shape is that the widest part is actually at about the same level as the crotch, and the curve usually continues from there down along the thighs to the knees. Guys thighs are usually a much straighter line, unless he's exceptionally buff (I'm thinking steroided-out, here) or significantly overweight.

Female anatomy help - kynliod

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 09:57:46 -0000

Sid's sketches are a great start. Just think of it this way. Males are broad of shoulder and narrow of hip. Women are narrow of shoulder and broad of hip. Even very thin women will generally have more "hippyness" to their form than they will broad shoulders. I actually come from a long line of athletic-looking women, and we all have pretty broad shoulders. But along with that comes more accentuated hips and larger busts (I'm an exception, having the broad shoulders, but I'm kinda scrawny and little, go fig). And Sid, thanks for the book reference--and *excellent* point about European publications! It's something I've noticed as well, but on a subconscious level. Never really considered the fact that because they are more natural about models and such, their art books must be more thorough in these areas as well. I'm just guessing that mine is an American publication, though I have had no time lately to actually check, hehe.

Female anatomy help - Sidney Eileen

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 06:41:19 -0000

I had time to sketch a couple comparisons today. They're far from perfect, but here they are anyway.

critique on a sitting dragon - Vizon

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 05:38:06 -0000

I don't have time to really do any sort of in-depth critique, but my first impression when I saw this was that he looks like a huge, heavy, powerful beast the way you've drawn him with such thick legs and broad sauropodian chest. But as such his wings seem a bit inadequate to support such a massive body (even if his bones are hollow like a birds - that's a lot of muscle bulk). Is there a way at this stage that you could increase the size of the wings? Maybe double what they are now? http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/attachment.php?attachmentid=78029 http://www.elfwood.com/farp/dragons/dhroar.jpg