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Progress Update - With a side-dish of some art tips...
19 years ago
Here's a little report on what I've been up to, art-wise...
That painting that I submitted recently, "Warrior Pride", had been my main focus for a while - So, with that one done, I can finally resume work on any requests, collabs, art trades and the like, that have been collecting dust, and hopefully get most of those done soon. Other than that I'm not currently working on anything major.
The last few days or so I had a little art block and didn't get much done. Eventually I ended up grabbing a pencil and some sheets of paper - After about two years of working exclusively with Digital media. Not surprisingly, it took me a few attempts to get back into it, ( I'm still looking for the "undo" option, whenever I make a mistake :D ) but I'm having fun with it. Some of my future lineart will most likely be done traditionally. And who knows, I may even succeed in creating some fully traditonal work, if I keep at it.
Now, as for the second part of this journal - Since people keep asking me for tips, I decided to write down some of my thoughts on colouring/ painting. I'm trying to keep these fairly simple and general, so they should be useful to most artists, regardless of style or media/ software. There goes:
-Before you can do decent colouring, you need to understand how lighting works and how colours affect one another - If you're not sure how something should look, observe your surroundings, or search for reference pictures with similar lighting/ colours.
-Try to use only two or three major colours for your pictures - Beginners often make the mistake to go wild and turn their pictures into a rainbow, but the more colours you use, the more difficult it will be to balance them out.
-Definitely invest some time and thought into planning the colouring of your picture - Ideally, before the lineart is even completed. Look at some photographs or art for inspiration, think about the mood you want to create etc.
-When you start colouring, you may want to create a little palette, with all the major tones you're going to use for the picture. That way you can see how they look next to each other, and adjust them if necessary.
You could also take this a step further and create a "thumbnail" of your drawing - either by resizing, or by redrawing a small version of your picture, if you're working paper. Roughly fill it in with colour; if necessary, do several, until you come up with a version you like - Then use it as a reference for the big picture.
-At the beginning of the colouring/ painting process, make sure you -zoom out- of your picture. You want to be able to see the entire painting on your screen. That way it is much easier to spot any major lighting and composition flaws, etc. If you zoom in too early, you will likely get lost in details and miss those major problems. Gradually zoom in, as you refine the picture.
That's all for now. I might create a proper step-by-step tutorial one day, but until then I'll try to post some more tips here at my Journal. Hope these are useful to some of you. And feel free to share your own thoughts on the subject.
---
-WORKS IN PROGRESS- ( Last update: Wednesday, 29th November)
*Collab with CaptainGerBear
Status: In progress/ Waiting for response.
*thewhitedragon Headshot Request
Status: Rough sketch done/ On hold.
*Jindai Request/ Art-trade for Piumartiglio
Status: Rough concept done. / On hold.
... other than that, nothing major, except for the usual random fanart ( and non-anthro art).
And that, as they say, was that.
~dasAoD
That painting that I submitted recently, "Warrior Pride", had been my main focus for a while - So, with that one done, I can finally resume work on any requests, collabs, art trades and the like, that have been collecting dust, and hopefully get most of those done soon. Other than that I'm not currently working on anything major.
The last few days or so I had a little art block and didn't get much done. Eventually I ended up grabbing a pencil and some sheets of paper - After about two years of working exclusively with Digital media. Not surprisingly, it took me a few attempts to get back into it, ( I'm still looking for the "undo" option, whenever I make a mistake :D ) but I'm having fun with it. Some of my future lineart will most likely be done traditionally. And who knows, I may even succeed in creating some fully traditonal work, if I keep at it.
Now, as for the second part of this journal - Since people keep asking me for tips, I decided to write down some of my thoughts on colouring/ painting. I'm trying to keep these fairly simple and general, so they should be useful to most artists, regardless of style or media/ software. There goes:
-Before you can do decent colouring, you need to understand how lighting works and how colours affect one another - If you're not sure how something should look, observe your surroundings, or search for reference pictures with similar lighting/ colours.
-Try to use only two or three major colours for your pictures - Beginners often make the mistake to go wild and turn their pictures into a rainbow, but the more colours you use, the more difficult it will be to balance them out.
-Definitely invest some time and thought into planning the colouring of your picture - Ideally, before the lineart is even completed. Look at some photographs or art for inspiration, think about the mood you want to create etc.
-When you start colouring, you may want to create a little palette, with all the major tones you're going to use for the picture. That way you can see how they look next to each other, and adjust them if necessary.
You could also take this a step further and create a "thumbnail" of your drawing - either by resizing, or by redrawing a small version of your picture, if you're working paper. Roughly fill it in with colour; if necessary, do several, until you come up with a version you like - Then use it as a reference for the big picture.
-At the beginning of the colouring/ painting process, make sure you -zoom out- of your picture. You want to be able to see the entire painting on your screen. That way it is much easier to spot any major lighting and composition flaws, etc. If you zoom in too early, you will likely get lost in details and miss those major problems. Gradually zoom in, as you refine the picture.
That's all for now. I might create a proper step-by-step tutorial one day, but until then I'll try to post some more tips here at my Journal. Hope these are useful to some of you. And feel free to share your own thoughts on the subject.
---
-WORKS IN PROGRESS- ( Last update: Wednesday, 29th November)
*Collab with CaptainGerBear
Status: In progress/ Waiting for response.
*thewhitedragon Headshot Request
Status: Rough sketch done/ On hold.
*Jindai Request/ Art-trade for Piumartiglio
Status: Rough concept done. / On hold.
... other than that, nothing major, except for the usual random fanart ( and non-anthro art).
And that, as they say, was that.
~dasAoD
sorry was that to random :P
http://drawn.ca/2006/11/03/bobby-ch.....ing-tutorials/