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[ImaginaryThomas]

So I'm more of a coder than an artist but since I'm forced into being a one man production studio (I don't know any local indie gamers yet) I've been trying to work on my creative side. Also I'm driving myself to be more outwardly creative. I have an active imagination but no real medium to express it with. I've always enjoyed drawing, well doodling mostly, but I've been practicing daily for a while now and I have made great improvements but I seem to have a long way to go...

So since you're all awesome artists I both envy and adore I would appreciate some feedback/critique/suggestions and I invite other amateurs to also post here for some feedback.

So here's some pictures I drawed.


Poses


Moon fact sheet


Science!


experiments in style






Socks Monster


Unfinished colouring job.

So I'd love to hear some feedback and advice if you have it. More of my work can be found on my visual blog (link in my signature)

Thanks!

[george]

Do you have some method or tutorial you've followed to get to this point? That last pic actually is quite lovely.

[ImaginaryThomas]

Not really, I've mostly been doing this through trial and error of what techniques work best and which don't.

I took art in high school so I have basic knowledge of drawing techniques.

And thanks!

[konjak]

I think the characters are cute and well done!

Depending on what coloring you'd like to learn it can be a bitch, though, if you want to get ahead really quick.

[michael]

youre off to a good start! i really like the first image. over all you seem to have a good comprehension of what youre drawing. much better than my first 6 12 years of drawing

[Derek]

These are all really fun!  And your topic heading reminds me that I kinda wanted to start an "art workshop" on this board.  Maybe every couple of weeks we can start a new workshop thread to help people practice something art-related.

EDIT: Oh, and since you asked for some constructive feedback!  Practicing daily is a good start - I'd suggest throwing a little life-drawing in every day.  It's eminently useful Your linework also feels a bit rigid.  It will improve naturally as you become more confident, but you can help break out of that by focusing on using free-er, broader strokes.  Try drawing bigger and using thick markers.  Don't pick up your pen until the stroke is finished.

But yeah, I'd love to see more!  Great job!

[Eclipse]

i really like "Science!" characters, hope to see them painted in with tick black outlines and colored too 

[neon]

HOW TO DRAW GOOD LOL

1. lurk on conceptart.org

2. lurk on wayofthepixel.net

3. study anatomy

4. study light and surfaces

5. practice without eating, drinking, or sleeping for 5 years

6. become zen master of art

7. lol at everyone else

8. ??

9. Profit!!!1

also experiment with using other parts of your arm to draw other than your wrist.  use your whole arm, or just your fingers, etc.  using your whole arm will generally give you a nice, accurate line.  BUT FOR GODS SAKE MAN STOP WITH THE TINY FAINT LINE ON TOP OF TINY FAINT LINE OVER AND OVER THING as soon as you can, because it makes things that would otherwise look clean and nice, fuzzy and shitty-looking.

as it is now, it looks pretty good!  but you, like all of us, need practice.  it's funny, because a lot of beginners attempt harder stuff than you, and the poses always look really stiff and crappy.  but your figures look really nice and loose.  if you wanna make things look more loose go to a park with some paper and a pen (not a pencil, so you can't erase anything) and just draw people and things.

  tl;dr: keep going, it looks great so far.

[ImaginaryThomas]

Thanks to all for the encouragement and pointers! 

There's a park right near me so hiding in the bushes to do some life drawing shouldn't be hard. I've been practicing hardcore for about a year now.

Would there be any benefit in taking a drawing class of sorts?

Konjak: (First off, I love your style so praise from you makes me go  ) What methods are there for colouring? Right now I'm doing it with layers (one for lines, one for colour and one for shading)

Neon: I use the faint line over faint line as structure (sort of like head goes here and will be yay big) Is this a crutch I should avoid? Use my whole arm as in don't rest my hand on the paper? That seems like it would give me a wilder, less accurate line, pray explain!

Thanks again everyone!

[neon]

lol i think you should literally hide in the bushes and draw people  :D

no, leave your hand down.. i guess what i mean is draw from the shoulder, without moving your elbow, wrist, or fingers.  and then try moving your elbow, but not your wrist or fingers.  then try moving your wrist etc etc.  i'm basically saying to try new things with your technique of drawing. 

the faint lines.. are a bit of a crutch.  it's kind of like making really ugly scaffolding that's hard to take off and looks really bad while building a structure.  so, on second thought, i'm not really sure whether it would be a good idea to avoid it or not, for now until you do a lot of practice, as so:

taking the first paragraph into consideration, draw lots of lines, arcs, and stuff across your entire paper, until you draw straighter and more accurately.  there was a thread on conceptart.org forums about this, but i don't have the link. 

practice practice practice dude

[ImaginaryThomas]

Interesting idea, I'll give it a shot tonight!

Is there another less gross way to make the scaffolding?

These are all really fun!  And your topic heading reminds me that I kinda wanted to start an "art workshop" on this board.  Maybe every couple of weeks we can start a new workshop thread to help people practice something art-related.

Like a competitions forum for art? I agree that this awesome idea is awesome

[neon]

..about being less gross - i would say for building a figure, start with a line of action - the spine, and add shoulders and hips as lines.  then, remember that what you are doing is putting 3d things into 2d space, and draw, describing the forms of what you are drawing as well as you can.  use as many one-liners as you can - by that i mean lines where you know what goes where, so you can just hit it with one line drawn in a single motion and have it be done and look good. 

keep practicing

[deadeye]

3. study anatomy

3. study anatomy

3. study anatomy

Yep.  Even if you're just doing cartoon characters or chibis or whatever.  This is important stuff.

I'd also like to suggest that taking some drawing classes would help just about anyone, regardless of skill level.  If you can't afford full-on art school, you might be able to just audit some drawing classes at your local college.

I'd also like to chime in that drawing is not like riding a bike... it's something that you have to practice regularly to stay sharp.  I learned this one the hard way.

[neon]

I'd also like to chime in that drawing is not like riding a bike... it's something that you have to practice regularly to stay sharp.  I learned this one the hard way.

YUS

[Nate Kling]

Here's a nice site to help you with getting your forms down for the human figure.
http://www.posemaniacs.com/

[ImaginaryThomas]

Awesome site, Thanks!

Does anyone have any good tips for coloring?

[Nate Kling]

I think Arne's tutorial will help you out there.  Also check his main site for more great stuff.
http://www.itchstudios.com/psg/art_tut.htm

[Cymon]

Here's my kneejerk reaction to your work. First of all I should probably illustrate what I can do that way you can decide whether to trust my advice:


I'm sorry I don't have some of my other examples online. These will have to do.

Okay, now that's out of the way, here's my thoughts on your work:
You have no sense of the dimension of your drawings. You use curves on the faces and tricks with arms and legs, but I get the impression that you're reusing the same tricks over and over again. You're using them very well, but you're only drawing what you know you can draw. It's only lines on paper to you, the same lines you've practiced over and over again.

Try this, take your character and rag doll them. Do a series of drawings where they're flipping in the air, limbs going every which way like they're caught in an explosion, arms behind their head twisted around at odd angles. Avoid pedestrian poses, poses that you know and are safe.

If you can't do that start with a block character. Get yourself one of those little wooden men and do some drawings of that. Watch gymnastics and recreate poses of the gymnists and then rotate them around and draw it again from the side and on top.

I think Arne's tutorial will help you out there.  Also check his main site for more great stuff.
http://www.itchstudios.com/psg/art_tut.htm

Seconded.

[ImaginaryThomas]

Nice work, it's a good indication of the level of complexity/detail I'm aiming for.

Interesting suggestions, I have one of those wooden doll drawing things but I've never really fully understood how I was supposed to use it.                     give your suggestions a try, thanks!

[cmspice]

Concerning hiding in the bushes, I tend to draw people (usually the professor) in class. Most the time I'm impartial but I'll draw the cute ones as I see fit . Make sure you bring a thick 6B pencil or a sharpie for quickly blotting out what you don't want people to see .

It's nice to see someone in the same boat as me. I've taken scarce drawing lessons before High School and that taught me the basics of how to use a... pencil. Since then, I just practice during math classes. This is awful convenient when you're a math major. If you want to go hardcore about it, I heartily agree with all the suggestions given so far. Just whimsically drawing what you want sounds nice on paper, but when you keep doing it, you'll get caught in redundancy. You'll start drawing the same things in the same style and making the same mistakes over and over. I keep hitting this wall and it frustrates me so I stop drawing for a while and pick it up again later. If you do what I do, improvements will be slow although you definitely will see improvements. So I keep telling myself I'd go embark on drawing "studies" where I force myself to draw in a certain way or draw certain things. It's dull and tough if you have no outside source of motivation (i.e. an impending grade for a class).

Lastly, you say you want to find a medium to express your creativity. Drawing is a traditional and rigid medium. If you want to get good at drawing you need to practice till your eyes pop up. What I love about indy games is it proves what non-artists can do with a very visual medium. There so many indy games that don't necessarily have great graphics or good artwork yet are incredibly aesthetic. Obviously, mastering the medium will take practice, but I tend to find it much
less forgiving than drawing. Not to say you should give up drawing or anything, but you really should consider indy games as just another expressive medium.