[Crystalis]

Hi there, I'm Crystalis, lurker here for about a year, now coming into the art scene. I've practiced for quite a while, honing my skills (my anatomy – particularly hands and legs are still awful), and finally came up with a drawing of my own that I feel is good enough to share with the community. I use pencil and paper to do the sketch, Adobe Photoshop Elements with a Wacom to touch it up, though they always end up still looking sketchy. If anyone has tips/links to pages on how to get a smoother shading look, I'd really appreciate it.

Oh, and one more thing. I haven't named her yet, so if anyone would like to suggest a name, I'd be glad to hear them. Thanks!

http://i31.tinypic.com/5lrozn.jpg

[eccentricman]

As a first drawing of many, you made a great start and need to continue. Just look at the work of Archangel Dreadnaught for an example of how a style can grow and improve over time. In my opinion, there are several basic proportional issues with the image, but in this genre and with a possible anime/manga influence there is no benchmark for me to really judge whether or not you achieved what you wanted to. So, I'll say I like it, but that I want to see how you progress drawing by drawing.

I'm not in any position to give advice as guru-to-student (if you know what I mean [as I suck]), but there are a couple of things you should think about if you want to improve and refine your drawings:

1) Practice makes perfect. By drawing this image and then finishing it, you have already made the biggest step. Every drawing from now on in the series should look to improve, anatomically, stylistically or whatever.

2) Drawing from reference is not a crime. If you want realistic, try and draw from photographs of fbbs. The more you draw a body, the better you know it. If anime or manga style is more your thing, see how muscles are drawn in cartoons and other good manga art, and remember, until you get your own style, it is legitimate to say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

3) Buy some books. Burne Hogarth's Dynamic Figure Drawing is the bible as far as I am concerned and there are others which focus on specialist subjects related to muscle. Read up and make the exercises there your own, when you get a grip on them you've done nine tenths of the work.

4) Find a style. The image, you say, is sketchy. I'm also a sketchy kind of guy: I like sketchy. If that works for you, pursue it, keep what you like about it and work on removing the things you don't. If you want smooth or expressive, think about how other great artists do these things.

These are my big four generally, and if you do any of these, your work is almost guaranteed to grow and grow in a direction you are comfortable with. If you don't like what you've drawn, either don't draw it again, or redraft it and draw it a different way, but remember, your goals are unique and specific to you regardless of what steps I suggest and you must choose how to approach your page every time.

A couple of technical tips before I sign off though:

a) photoshop and tablets can be tricky enough without having to learn as you go along. Tracing paper and some nice sharp pencils of different hardnesses will often do the job better than some touchups on screen.

b) No amount of filters will make your image look better, by magic. A filter is a tool like a paintbrush or an eraser.

c) The clever use of layering and masking in photoshop will allow you to turn sketches into fine art, but really still use the same principles of drawing and colouring on tracing paper or acetate. Master those and you can master anything.

d) This is going to sound quite weird, but please bear with me if you have made it this far. As you grow in confidence with your drawing, make your lines do more for you. If you look at any decent manga or painting, you will see that the varying qualities and thincknesses of line are really what animate the scene, in addition to all the composition.

Hope I don't sound too condescending, or pompous and look forwards to seeing more of your work!

[Crystalis]

o_O

I was not expecting that kind of detailed reply, but wow, I really appreciate it. Being an amateur artist simply working for the hobby of it, I haven't really taken into consideration some of the reference ideas you mentioned (other than referring to other artist's work, but I do it minimally.) I'll definitely take all that into consideration and keep working at it. Thanks. 🙂

[randy guillotte]

Kudos to you, Crystalis, for taking the initiative of sharing something you obviously enjoy, with the rest of us. And a thank you as well to Eccentricman for a plethora of good tips.

[Ashlee]

Very Nice and sexy!

[ze fly]

Not bad at all.  🙂 And i'm sure you'll quickly improve with all the good advices eccentricman gave you.  😉

[Author]

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