I like the lineless pics. The only issue with them, however, is that you have to be much more cautious about the shading and proportions. Since the lineless works look more "realistic", any errors in form are amplified by the contrast. The shading becomes especially important, since it is the only way to differentiate things being separate from each other (like cock in front of fur). So the thick-lined works tend to be obviously sexual, since it's so easy to see the juicy bits XD

Yeah, or shiny bits to show the surface's reflectivity change or texture. OK, got it :O <3 I'll keep that in mind.

personally, I'm a bit of a content-over-quality kinda guy, so you could make pics from mixed media papercraft smeared with dirt if it looked good and worked in the context of the picture.

That said, I have enjoyed your lineless work, and its quality shows your progress as an artist. It might seem a bit vague of me, but I'd reckon you should decide on a pic to pic basis whether or not to use it, finding what works best. Although, it'd be interesting to see a pic with both; imagine a crowd of lineless people onlooking a thick-lined person as they transform into a living cartoon, or some such...


but yeah, A+ would fap again :3

Hey, nice idea, right there :O (The lined to lineless, or vice versa.)

I gone lineless myself and I think it fit my style better. I say stick with it. I think it looks better and can can on go up.

Blackula just stopping in to say
that with or without your art makes Blackula go hey
although the lineless seems more classy
That most people don't do
I was digging this art from you
Feels like a good change
but in the end its what you like
I can dig your stuff regards of this plight
but in Blackula personal opinion being different is always artsie in his book

;_; <3
You don't have to speak in verse,
Even if it's the Blackula's curse,
But I'm quite glad
That you write I'm rad,
Because for Coolness you got there first!

It looks more 'realistic,' but there isn't really anything that immediately catches your eyes.

Hm, perhaps I need more extreme contrast, then. Most of the more-impressive lineless people have backgrounds as well as extreme contrast (Black to color, color to white, etc.)

I have been enjoying the lineless works, although occasionally the shapes are a bit challenging to fully make out without that distinction along the edges.

it may not look good yet but keep practicing and it will.

years ago all my art, even in illustrator, relied upon scans of real-world inks. i'd have a layer with my inks on it, and draw all kinds of colored shapes beneath it. but i kept on turning the ink layer off to get paths juuuust right, and i started to think "hey, that looks pretty cool!". then one day i took the plunge and decided to do a piece with no outlines to hold it together, just colored shapes against each other. and it was hard those first few times.

color becomes much more important. start thinking about palettes, visit the bookstore and pick up a few books on color. there's a bunch of them - little books full of color schemes with cmyk/rgb/pantone numbers next to them, and text about ways of building color schemes up. you're using lots of super-intense colors and without outlines, they get kinda eye-searing.

also keep an eye on your contours, in the recent pieces i'm looking at you have some really messy, bumpy edges to your shapes. when you're working under a layer of lines with some nice thick-and-thin, you can get a little sloppy with the edges under there, but without them, your contours have to be either precise, or clearly showing lots of maker's marks - and yours do neither.

also, when you have nicely modeled shadows, the lack of backgrounds becomes really apparent. a b&w character sketch floating in a white void is fine, an inked and flat-colored character in a white void starts to look funny, and a character who's lovingly shaded looks really weird. at least lay down a ground color and some vague suggestion of a shadow, when you can see where they're contacting what they're standing/sitting on.

don't just shade with a darker/more intense version of the same color, don't just highlight with a brighter/desaturated version. get some hue change in there. typically here on earth under a yellow sun, our shadows are bluish and our highlights are yellowish.

you also have some general proportion/construction issues. looking at the tiger-to-fox tf for instance: that torso is like a snake, and not in a good way; his eyes are huge and he's got next to no cranium. the proportions get better on the right.

if you're gonna start doing soft modelled things you also really need to start thinking about texture. blasting highlights and shadows in with a soft-edged brush makes everything look like plastic. which is fine when you actually want to draw a plastic toy, but not so great when you're drawing other things. i don't really have any tips on this because i abstract things down to flat colors and fairly stark, graphic shadows.

for where you seem do be going i would suggest checking out  uniformvixen - she's really gotten a handle on a painterly look in the past couple of years. and she does streams fairly regularly, go watch her work and pick up some technique!

Thanks for such a comprehensive and thoughtful comment. I'll do my best to reply in turn...

Your comment about color being more important is one that weighs down on me. Since I'm color-blind, the last I want to do is pick a green when I meant a red, or vice versa... It's easier when I have the hue slider, but I've made mistakes when trying to eyeball colors for reference.

There're plenty of online pallet pickers, though, so maybe I can consider them if I want a variety. D:

Ultimately, the bumpy edges to the shapes are due to my tablet shaking... I have to re-draw and erase parts of a contour many times before I get even close to what you see. :| It may have to be a compromise I'll have to live with until my tablet and PC are better.

The background point is very important-- I"ll try to put some more colors or defined situations down.

Re: Don't shade in the same color: sometimes I shade with a red or a blue, depending. With some of these color pictures, I went back into the habit of re-using the same hue, or a closeby color if the original hue wouldn't multiply.. I"ll keep using different colors in mind as well. When I don't have a deliberate light source, I can muddle it up.

Re: Proportions, I'm going to pass by on your advice, there. I realize that things may 'look off' to some, but I'm sticking to my guns when I think it looks good. Ultimately, I'll either keep improving with each drawing, or stay where I am due to a lack of natural talent. I'm not deliberately bending proportions too much--yet.

You're right about the texture of surfaces. That's probably the hardest point, since I've found no easy way to draw fur. Hair is easier than fur, but still hard if you're lazy and a newb. Skin is at least something I think I can hit when I try for it. Thanks for mentioning texture, I'll keep that in mind.

I already watch UV, so maybe I"ll actually drop in or refer to UV's art for something I should learn from. (I have a growing bookmark folder, now.)

It looks more 'refined,' more 'painterly,' but as it's a new style for you, there are still rough edges to it as you settle in to the new way of thinking for it. Lineless work has a lot of challenges to it, because we remove the 'crutch' of the lineguides.

Look at the work of some of the Old Masters, and remember that underneath those masterful strokes in oil or acrylic lies the layout sketch, typically in charcoal. The old Masters knew the importance of linework, they just hid it well as they built the detail layers on top.

Keep plugging away at it and you'll get the rough parts worked out. A radically different style is a lot like learning to draw all over again from the beginning.

I'm glad to hear that the old masters sketched out their forms first, because that's what I've been doing. I felt that it could be construed as cheating. >_>

Cheating? laying out a sketch beforehand is only cheating if you're working in Jackson Pollock style. (abstract artist, look him up if you don't know him. Most of his works look like what other painters would call a 'dirty dropcloth.' but some people love the 'energy' in his works.)

When it comes to art, there's only one rule of thumb to live by: "It ain't cheating if you get away with it." Look at Boris Valejio, his masterful paintings, glorious depictions of the human form, start out with a rough layout sketch, then a series of photographs of models in the desired poses, THEN he pulls out the canvas and starts with the final layout sketch, then paints over that, using the photos as reference.


Although to be serious, there is ONE thing that is considered 'cheating' in art even if you feel like you've gotten away with it. That is plagiarism, claiming another's work as your own, or doing a trace job or photoshop job on another's piece without crediting the original artist. But I assume with all the conversations here on FA, that everyone has learned that plagiarism is bad.

I think both look great. It should probably depend on how you want the piece to look.

I'll keep that in mind.. THanks :>

*feels all inadequate next to mr. superlongcomment's comment*
I can't really say what makes a good lineless piece of a good lined piece, but I think it all has to do with accuracy of shading - in a lined piece you can get away with murder because the lines help define shapes, but in a lineless piece you're pretty much bound by accurate (or visually pleasing) shading, or else the picture fails to deliver quality wise.

Might I suggest to you trying to do something with partial lines, or colored lines to sort of transition?