But I felt dissatisfied with the messy, inefficient way I was going about it, so I switched to drawing my character copying that pose (mirrored, as the character is left-handed). It’s a mess, but that’s because I have to think about it. I’m okay with how it’s going, even with all the mistakes I’m not sure how to fix.
I want to talk about the way I do lineart and coloring (basically, I’m usually lazy), but I’m about to fall asleep, so I’ll just share this timelapse instead (of Virion).
But then I ended up feeling like trying to sketch an expression again, instead. It was supposed to be a lonely or sad expression but I’m not sure it looks any different than usual. Maybe I can just blame the character’s lack of expressiveness, she’s probably just keeping her feelings inside.
Went back to this, wasn’t sure where to start, so I just added a simple background of some sort. Then the cloudiness messed up the lightning, so I worked on the shading but it’s still a mess. I also cleaned it up some but didn’t really ‘fix’ any major things.
So I thought, maybe if I look for and list some problems I can try to figure out how to fix them;
I don’t know what’s going on with the right shoulder and left elbow (or the other way around for that matter).
Something looks off about her head and right shoulder, like they aren’t aligned or something.
The bow needs to be redrawn.
Her right hand probably should be moved up (and redrawn properly).
I don’t know how that dagger sheath is attached to the belts.
Is the dagger long enough? It looks small compared to her hands, like she wouldn’t be able to grasp the handle.
I don’t know what’s going on with her legs/feet, is she going to fall and twist her ankle? (Ow.)
Her feet aren’t ‘attached’ to the background well, maybe it’s the lighting.
Hair is a mess. It’s supposed to be, but still. I can get away with it because it’s dark like the lines, though.
That messy dark lines doesn’t work so well with a lighter hair color, like this one:
Fanart of resplendent Lucius from Fire Emblem Heroes (but with a tome).
Re the archer’s shoulder line, what if you found a photo of an archer and practiced drawing gesture lines on top of that photo? I do that sometimes with animals when I’m uncomfortable with the pose but can’t figure out what’s wrong.
Hm it’s tricky to pin down the problems…the original artwork of Virion looks a bit odd to me, to be honest. His eyes and string arm don’t really seem to match the direction of the bow arm, which is apparently supposed to come closer to the camera, but instead the hand looks oddly oversized to me. And his neck must be quite bent too…
And if the camera is supposed to be aligned with the horizon, then the poor archer will indeed fall over I’m afraid.
It might be supposed to be a shot on the move, he seems to somewhat bend over, and the hair and jabot wave (in contradicting directions IMHO), but I can’t really tell without context.
I’m not sure what I’d do with the bow. I don’t think such a small bow would allow pulling the string so far, and a larger bow probably couldn’t be held that tilted because the string cuts into the chest.
As excercise I tried to replicate the pose myself, but it came out quite different:
Yeah, there could be some issues with the pose I copied from that I’d have trouble noticing. That’s the thing about copying other artwork.
In Virion’s case the dynamic pose is just meant to be ‘cool-looking attack pose’. In my character Reylos’s case the idea was she’s frustrated practicing, so I could instead imagine she gets sloppy with her form and if she’s careless enough to fall she’ll just curse herself for it.
Virion’s bow is tall, but Reylos canonically wields a shortbow which somehow fits under the cloak seen in my other drawings. (Mostly because I didn’t think through that part of her design. I’m not even sure where she keeps her quiver, maybe behind her left shoulder?)
I’ve been trying to think about what I know about archery form from the one time I did it, but that was a while back. And if this pose is in motion and with weird perspective, that makes it a bit difficult to visualize.
@Lynx3d Your version has straight arms which is probably good form, and I see the fingers drawing the bowstring back. In mine I’m not sure what the fingers are doing honestly, even aside from the bowstring and arrow being misaligned.
Thinking about the stance, maybe either it’s not wide enough or the back foot is supposed to be in midair, mid-motion, shifting weight from the front to the back.
It’s getting to the point where I spend an another hour on it and it feels like barely anything changed. But I did change some things. Raised and straightened her arm somewhat, redrew the bow to be less weirdly distorted (although it still is a bit wrong.) (And also the arrow is now curved because I moved only part of it.) Pretty sure I made the left arm worse. Made the dagger larger, maybe she’ll give up and throw it at the target instead.
Added more shading especially to the left foot in the back, but I end up worrying I’m going to make everything too dark, even as other parts are not dark enough.
Heh, well there are apparently multiple ways to draw a bow, but I don’t really know much about archery. I’ve found plenty of photos of traditional archery where I don’t really have a clue what the fingers are doing…
Oh I know that feeling, I often spend an hour or two on trying to improve something, only to close without saving and the conclusion that once again I only learned how it doesn’t work.
The kind of silly quick doodle I’d like to practice more, to be less rough around the edges. (15-30 min.) Inspired by this MR comment.
Tasty tofu* for Kiki
Kiki the cybersquirrel with fork and knife raised, ready to devour some delicious tofu.
* Tofu refers to the boxes sometimes shown when a text character can’t be displayed, so nicknamed because they resemble the food. In this case [0074][006F][0066][0075] represent the characters tofu.
There’s a lot going on here, I could probably spend ages on it.
For this, I thought it might be interesting to show the reference for comparison, so here’s a screenshot of my workspace.
You captured the kitten so well - that multitasking pose from wanting to play with the water but getting distracted by something else equally interesting.
Tried to draw something original with my character again. But it took so much effort just trying to figure out the pose, etc, that I forgot what I was trying to express with it.
I could keep working on it, but it might be better to just start over. I need more practice, to get the foundation right the first time. Maybe now that I have some idea what I’m doing and what it looks like, I could do it better. Or maybe I’d just be more impatient and draw it worse, if I had to start all over again.
This is the kind of drawing I want to learn how to do but can never tell if it’s worth it… Maybe Reylos is thinking about that necklace she acquired and wondering if the choices she made since then were worth it. But I guess it’s okay to have some confidence just for trying.
It looks good to me but only you know what you were aiming for.
The only thing I’d say about it is that the hand appears to be very large and long and is even longer than the forearm. I don’t think it’s because of foreshortening caused by the pose.
Ahh, I know exactly how you feel because I have the same. The struggle to get something just looking barely correct, the hours of mindful practice to internalize the basics. And even if you manage to produce something good, the risk of failure is ever the same with the next artwork you make. I can already tell there’s no end to this grind.
Everyone has to find their own motivation, but yeah, the opportunity cost is great in terms of the invested time. I have a few other things I wanted to do, but the day only has 24 hours…
My goal is to get to a level where I can draw something decently good consistently so that I can teach others, or use the skill for various practical things like maybe make my own game assets. But you definitely need to have fun here and now, or there’s no way to endure until you get to that point.
Yeah it also still takes me a lot of time until stuff looks correct…
yesterday Ramon linked some documentaries about reknown Manga artists in chat, and how they knock out sketches of the character poses is just jaw-dropping…
Anyway, do you actually try to define a perspective and draw a basic character model? Even the very skilled Mangaka usually draw at least some guidelines of the body under the clothes so the whole proportions make sense.
In this one, I also have some issues imagining the position from which we see the character. So besides thinking about the actual pose to draw, really try to define some kind of reference for the camera angle.
I gave it a try too. I started with a perspective grid, drew a puppet and just blocked out some clothes and hair on top of it:
Try to keep some proportions in mind, like the ellbows more or less line up with the navel if the arms hang straight down. I’m hardly an expert of human proportions yet, but your hand is definitely way too big.
Not even I know what I was aiming for, that’s probably part of the problem.
About the hand, I drew it first, using my own hand as a reference and taking up the whole canvas, then resized it. I figured I’d never be able to draw the hand without a reference, and I couldn’t draw the body without loosely using a reference either, so they ended up weirdly mismatched.
I never liked constructing much and I’m not very good at visualizing, so I’m not really even trying… This is about the extent of the sketch lines I did, obviously they’re not very helpful.
Anyway, while I was procastinating about thinking about how to reply to these replies
I ended up working on it some more, for some reason. Have no idea if the hand’s still too big or not, since I barely noticed the problem in the first place.
The hands are very difficult indeed. Even if you understand the basic structure, it’s hard to visualize it at the angle you need.
After some trial and error, I can tell you with complete confidence, that practicing construction in perspective is the only way to draw from imagination or without a very close reference. Otherwise you are forever doomed to only be able to interpret what you see exactly (i.e. copies, studies).
To me the foundation of growth is: copying, construction, and self-critique (finding the mistakes and fixing them). I know I must do a lot more of it myself
Then, many years ago, I had obviously made the right professional decisions without suspecting it. My initial training as a carpenter requires spatial imagination and technical drawing, in all conceivable perspectives, is part of the training. The second training was then the increase of what I learned drawing and imagination demanding and encouraging as a carpenter, technical draftsman in mechanical engineering, without the ability to think in 3D you are lost there.
The first training lasted three, and the second training lasted two and a half years.
