Trying to make arts again

[300BillionDegrees]

Kind of hesitant to post this, since all I see looking at it are endless problems, but I guess I need to start somewhere. Anyway this is my attempt at a sketch of Emi & Rin as Max & Chloe that I made trying to learn to draw on my iPad. I know the line weight? is all over the place, emi's face and hand really bother me, leaned too much on reference pics for the Max clothes for Rin (making her somewhat too flat) and the line thickness at least makes her head look like it belongs in different image or something. I spent way too much time in some places than I should for a 'sketch' which I think shows a lot too. I guess I made it too big also. And my attempt at a signature thing looks like crap.
[spoiler][/spoiler]

[soup]

it works as a sketch, conveying very basic information about the shape and composition of the piece which is all a sketch should really do. quick and powerful lines to convey energy flow and movement.

the proportions of the characters look reasonable enough however there is very little to go on considering one of the characters has no arms and the other is almost completely concealed. i would be interested to see life drawings or an attempt at something that isnt so stylized

you have correctly identified that yes the linework is varied but there are areas where it is also nonexistant (the hand of the character in the back is a good example).  some lines come to a complete halt with no variation in width and thin and thick lines are placed seemingly at random. you make a remark about working from a reference in relation to the image looking flat, but in reality nothing kills an image more easily than uniform and monotonous linework. there is no depth of line to convey information to the viewer.

consider using lines to convey as much information as you can, delicate lines to represent thin fabric or hair, thick lines in areas where you might experience a cast shadow or areas of shade ect. as i stated before this image makes for a good sketch, an exercise you could try though would be to take this image, lower the opacity to something like 20% of what it was and work on a new image above it focusing entirely on the linework.

[300BillionDegrees]

Thanks for the actual constructive criticism! I was worried about getting the proportions of the heads right since anime style characters seems to have larger heads. Not drawing the lower bodies was basically me being lazy and hiding Emi in back was both cheating/trying to make something more interesting than standing side by side. Emi must be standing on a box or something though, because she should be 10cm shorter than Rin. I also just noticed that I never drew the part of her that should be showing under Rin's sleeve :facepalm:

I pretty much have no life drawings which is something I know I need to do, along with lots of grinding of individual bits that are difficult for me, but I have a really hard time staying focused on anything for that long. I spent probably four+ hours over two days just trying to get the hand to not look deformed. Worrying so much about the outline of the hand and fingers, I didn't even think to draw any of the lines on the hand itself.

I think most of the thick lines are where I'm being too careful and pressing too hard with the pencil (a problem I've had all my life - last year I bought some 9H pencils and sometimes I was pressing so hard with them it looked like I was using a #2 pencil). Some of the other parts I realize are where I zoomed way in and worked too much trying to perfect them. The lighter lines I think are where I felt more confident, like most of Rin's clothes. I had three pictures I was working from and most of that part was done pretty quickly, though there it looks kind of flat as mentioned. Also flat as in Rin is a bit more endowed than Max.

Thanks again for the advice. I'll try the 20% thing before I start on anything else and see if I can make any improvements this time around.

[300BillionDegrees]

So it seems to me that drawing new lines on top of old lines doesn't work very well at all, at least not for me. I need to just pull this up in a window as a reference and start a new canvas. I've been playing around with a few other things, playing with the different brushes and pencil angles and some color and whatnot, as well as finding more ways to abuse layers. Made a crappy fan doodle aiming for a quick cartoony style. The inside joke part kind of worked, but it shows how terrible I am at even a simple figure without reference. Maybe at this rate I'll manage a second sketchy image in a few weeks, but for now I'm just gonna sleep for as long as I can get away with.

[rtil]

confidence in your sketchwork will come with consistent practice and grinding at the human figure. if you need any critique or resources myself and plenty others here are willing to help. some things work better for others but it's good to say that at least you tried something

[rtil]

here's a figure drawing tool btw

[300BillionDegrees]

Thanks. I've seen that link before, I think the last time I was being depressed and whiny. I need to stop doing that. Anyway, here's the doodle I made a week and a half ago, and a new one I made today. These were both just little jokes inspired by the Mindcrack group playing 7 Days to Die (yet another early release zombie apocalypse game still in alpha, but one that's actually fun and in active development).

This one is depicting Docm77 selecting the site for his new bunker build (his previous bunkers have suffered from some unfortunate incidences). It's way too empty and I took entirely too long trying to draw simple dead trees, but I discovered the edge brush in the process.



This second one I drew much more quickly, trying to find a cartoony style more appropriate for this group while playing with very basic colors and mostly the watercolor brush. I was mostly trying to see what I could to quickly with pencil pressure and angles. This one depicts w92baj and the height of his adventures in the burnt forest biome (which, apart from excessive heat requiring him to sit in puddles to cool down, is currently somewhat lacking in content).

[michaell]

dont use the brush tool to color things like this because it might end up looking quite scrappy - especially with the white spots/stains/holes on the edges

just color the whole object and then add the shading/whatever you want itll be more consistent this way

[michaell]

also dont chastise yourself when shit doesnt turn out the way you would like it to, you're just going to strain yourself this way.

i can tell you from experience, since i used to be quite assiduous and picky about my garbage

and it wasnt healthy at all

now i dont care anymore and honestly i find it way more fun than i used to

albeit if you want to get really good you probably have to practise and study things - which i dont, at all

[300BillionDegrees]

I'm trying to worry less, which is why I made myself post these too. I need to learn the shading bit, but I do like the brush look. I'm really, really bad at practicing anything so I'm trying to just draw more and maybe that way my repeated attempts to fix bits as I go along will be like tricking myself into practicing whatever that bit is.

[300BillionDegrees]

Two things that bug me the most with the second image is that I should have made his about 80% of the size and the overlap of the lines around the puddle. Even though I was trying to draw quickly, I should have cleaned those up a little.