[Art] Scribblings of a Hobo - Tablets are fun(Updated 10/07/09)

[Teh_Hobo]

Sooo.....  I'm not really sure what to say here. I draw a lot, and really my only source of criticism is my family (though my mother and uncle are both artists, so thats helpful), and I want to improve. So, heres some of my recent stuff.

The Gunslinger - A character from a story that is in the conceptual stages
Erlea - A character from the same story. I'll probably end up rescanning this one, though. Hardback sketchbook and wonky scanner settings FTL.
Pirate Blimp - An idea for a different story.
Flying City -  Another idea.
Chaos & Confusion - Drawn after listening to waaay to much noise music.
Night on Amp Mountain - Because it is incredibly METAL.
The Gunslinger (inked) - Cleaned up and photoshopped. need to work on the shading.
The Gunslinger (color) - After inking the pic, i was feeling adventurous and decided to try to color it. I think it worked out pretty well for my first attempt.
Camping - Inspired by Fallout and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. to a lesser extent.
Hiding in a rather ridiculous manner - I don't really know.
CCC for Pagan
CCC for Modelincard
Krisiun Logo
Zyklon and Naglfar Logos
Phil - w00t another character for another story that will likely fail
Drottnar Logo
The Berzerker Logo
Agoraphobic Nosebleed Logo
Phil again - Hes standing this time.
Grimwald/Lucas/??? - No name for this guy yet.
Cathy - Sharp, pointy teeth!
I have a horn and I am ANGRY ABOUT IT - Huzzah for not being creative when it comes to names!
NEW:
Lucas Grimwald - He has a name now. And color!
Night On Amp Mountain V2 - Sort of finished, but not really.
Annihilate - Richard Simmons finally cracked.

[Ren Gaulen]

These are neat. I particularly liked the "Amp Mountain". Though "Flying City" and "C&C" (heheh.. C&C) did not want to load at all for some reason.

[Kipiru]

Nice work- you have quite a nice technique. and you don't seem to lack vision either- loved the flying city. Next step would be coloring maybe.

[WhiteFox]

These are great drawings. I like the detail you put into things, like the hands and arms on Chaos and Confusion. I like the mood of Night on Amp Mountain. The pose in the Gunslinger looks kind of stiff, probably from his shoulders being positioned the way they are.

Kip, I'd think inking would come before colors... and even then, I don't see ink or color as being a requirement for a good looking drawing. Well, Ok, solid black/white is always going to look better then pale gray. That still doesn't mean it's a better drawing.

[Kipiru]

Kip, I'd think inking would come before colors... and even then, I don't see ink or color as being a requirement for a good looking drawing. Well, Ok, solid black/white is always going to look better then pale gray. That still doesn't mean it's a better drawing.

I never said that- I was just wondering if he considered coloring at some point.

[Teh_Hobo]

Coloring...... eh, I don't like to color on the drawing itself, as I have a tendency to screw up massively on anything that I like. I only have photoshop limited, and I need way more practice with that. As for inking, I do ink my drawings, but only after I am completely and totally satisfied with it, and even then I'm a bit hesitant due to my aforementioned tendency to screw things up. That and my inking pen is running low on ink and I'm too broke to buy any more.

EDIT
attempting to avoid double posting. I inked a picture in photoshop, mainly to see if i could. Its rather difficult with my trackball, but it works. Also, if its done in photoshop, can it really be called inking? I dont know what else to call it.

[Teh_Hobo]

And then i noticed that edits dont bump a thread, which sort of defeated the purpose of me putting up another pic.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

For what it's worth, thread starters in the Tower of Art get a blind eye turned to double or triple posting. In other words, in the Tower of Art, and ONLY in the Tower of Art, artists and authors may post after themselves, in their own threads, without the management growling at them.

So you're not in trouble at all. ;-]

Edit:
  Nice pic, btw. It came out well...

[Teh_Hobo]

The Gunslinger, now in colors. Theres another link in the first post just in case.

[Kipiru]

Awesome coloring! Very neat and tidy- I especially like how you've done the metal surface of the gauntlets(such surfaces are a weakness to me). The picture was nice in B&W, but now it looks complete.

[Teh_Hobo]

Been playing a lot of Fallout lately, and was inspired to make some post apocalyptic style stuff.
Camping
A couple of characters that have banded together for safety. Something about mohawk dude looks kinda... wrong. Can't quite place what it is that looks wrong about him.
Hiding in a rather ridiculous manner.
I don't know what exactly i was thinking when I sketched this one out, but it came out okay, so I kept it. Like my last picture, one of the people looks kinda off, in this case its the dude in the window.

[Kipiru]

I can't see anything wrong with the mohawk dude, apart from the style's flaw(meaning I'd have to start criticizing your style if I wanted to point out flaws and that's just rude). As for the window guy- the arm with the weapon seem off at several points( missing shoulder and the elbow is kind of too low) and his grin seems a bit unnatural, but that could have been something you were aiming for. Apart from that, both pics are really nice- I like your style and am intrigued to see it develop. I noticed that both pictures feature the guy with the shades- that wouldn't happen to be you Fallout character would it?

[GabrielsThoughts]

Is it a post apocalyptic....Seattle?

[Teh_Hobo]

And now for something a bit different.
- The gift for Pagan from the CCC thread.
- The gift for Modelincard from the CCC thread.
- When I'm bored I often do things like this. I take bands that i like and make logos that they will never use because they already have professionally done logos that look a lot better. But it keeps me amused. This one is for Krisiun, a Brazillian death metal band.
- For Zyklon, a Black/Death metal band from Norway, and Naglfar, a Swedish black metal band.

[Teh_Hobo]

Wow. Havent posted anything in quite a while. Time to remedy this!
- Meet Phil. A character for yet another story. I keep thinking up junk that i think would be pretty cool and then not doing anything with it. I really need to stop that. Anyway, i sketched this one out in a few minutes, and liked the way it came out. So I decided to try and ink it. This one was done traditionally, instead of the digital inking that ive been doing. Though i dont know how traditional it is to ink with a sharpie pen.
-  Oh hey, its another pointless band logo! This one is Drottnar. Though this one is actually readable.
- Yet another one. I do like how this one turned out though. Sort of a metal graffiti tag. It says The Berzerker.
- Its kind of sad that im doing more of these than actual pictures nowadays. I should get on that. This one is Agoraphobic Nosebleed.
All those last three were like the first pic, inked with a sharpie pen.
Also, even though i know its allowed round here, i still have to say M-M-M-MASSIVE NECROBUMP!

[Teh_Hobo]

More new stuffs.
- Its Phil again. Now with more standing and dagger holding. The arms look a little off to me, and the hands are pretty terrible. Im trying to work on it, but jesus i hate drawing them so much. Stupid hands.
- A character in the same story as Phil. Not sure what his name is yet. At the moment its sort of a tie between Grimwald and Lucas. Inspired partially by this guy(possibly NSFW), and this band.
- Cathy, another character from this story. ( I keep saying that as though i have something planned out. I really only have a few things here and there, but hey. Thats more than can be said for some of my other ideas. I'm thinking that this one may work.) Again, stupid hands. Shouldve done the lazy thing and hidden the hand behind her back. Also messed up the inking in a couple places. Still not quite used to it yet.
- Another guy with no name. But he does have the beginnings of a unicorn horn. ARRRRRRRGH HANDSSSSSSS also his face is a bit wonky and his head seems a bit too small.

[Teh_Hobo]

Oh look, stuff!
- The newly named Lucas Grimwald, now in colors. Cookies to whoever recognizes the references in the patches. Delicious Cake to whoever can even read the smaller ones.
- Night On Amp Mountain V2.0. Been working on this for a while. The inking process was an absolute pain until my parents decided to get me a tablet for my birthday. With the tablet I finished the inking pretty quickly, though it doesn't look quite as clean as my old method. I finished coloring it, thought I was done and uploaded it, after which I realized that I had forgotten to put in all the freaking cables. Just as well since I'm not really satisfied with the lighting or my shading (which is pretty much nonexistent in this pic). Hopefully I'll actually finish this someday.
- RAAAGE. Another one that I had started and then gotten frustrated inking until I got the tablet. I think I'm starting to get a bit faster with the whole inking and coloring, as this one went pretty quickly. Like the newer Night on Amp Mountain, still something of a WIP. The background fire is incredibly lazily done, the muzzle flashes are very meh, and the AK's are not very good at all. All of which may or may not be worked on later. </lazy bastard> Someone on the IRC said that he looks like an insane, evil Richard Simmons. I cannot get this imagery out of my head.

Also, I now have a DeviantArt page.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Heh. The "lolwut" and "all your base" ones are easy enough. Not sure what the DTM one is about. The GOATS one is interesting, but you missed the e off the end. The pentagon one on the left side is odd. The one below it, I think says something like ufsc, but it's unclear. Anything smaller than that is just too small to be seen, even if the image is blown up, simply because the pixels are too large compared to the font...

[WhiteFox]

The characters are well drawn, but the poses seem stiff to me.

I figured out a half decent way to render fire in Photoshop:

1: Lay out some orange  and yellow.
2: Use the smudge tool to push the orange into a suitably flamey shape. I did the sample below with a 32px smudge tool, and each stroke overlapped the previous one, which makes sharper looking flames. Usually a few passes, smudging up- and downwards, are needed to push the flames into a decent shape.
3: Repeat step 2, but with the yellow. I find the technique works better if the stroke of the smudge tool goes all the way up the flames, pulling the orange up even further.
(Diagram)
It's pretty quick and easy.

Anyway; nice looking work. The inking looks pretty clean all around.

[Tapewolf]

I figured out a half decent way to render fire in Photoshop:

:
It's pretty quick and easy.

Ooh.  Nice idea.  I'll have to remember that.

How about posting this in the Library as well?

[WhiteFox]

How about posting this in the Library as well?

Sounds good to me. I'll put together a more refined version some time.

Maybe post it with the other 40 Billion tutorials I have in development... 

[Teh_Hobo]

Heh. The "lolwut" and "all your base" ones are easy enough. Not sure what the DTM one is about. The GOATS one is interesting, but you missed the e off the end. The pentagon one on the left side is odd. The one below it, I think says something like ufsc, but it's unclear. Anything smaller than that is just too small to be seen, even if the image is blown up, simply because the pixels are too large compared to the font...

Yeah, lolwut and all your base were two of them. DTM is Death To Music, a netlabel that puts out free metal/industrial/??? music. GOATS is actually a reference to the webcomic, Goats, though GOATSE is a good idea to put on one of his patches in future. The pentagon/pentagram thing on the side has no actual meaning. I probably should have said that. Below that is PFSC, another comic I read. As for the others... CHEAT MODE ENGAGE! (warning, huge png is huge)

The characters are well drawn, but the poses seem stiff to me.

I figured out a half decent way to render fire in Photoshop:

1: Lay out some orange  and yellow.
2: Use the smudge tool to push the orange into a suitably flamey shape. I did the sample below with a 32px smudge tool, and each stroke overlapped the previous one, which makes sharper looking flames. Usually a few passes, smudging up- and downwards, are needed to push the flames into a decent shape.
3: Repeat step 2, but with the yellow. I find the technique works better if the stroke of the smudge tool goes all the way up the flames, pulling the orange up even further.
(Diagram)
It's pretty quick and easy.

Anyway; nice looking work. The inking looks pretty clean all around.

Any suggestions on making them look less stiff are welcome. I think I can see what you're talking about, I just can't seem to figure out how to make them look more natural.
also, thanks for the fire thing. Think I'll try it out and see how it looks in Annihilate.

[WhiteFox]

Any suggestions on making them look less stiff are welcome. I think I can see what you're talking about, I just can't seem to figure out how to make them look more natural.

*Removes Glasses*
*Pinches Bridge of Nose.*

Oh... Oh, jeez, I set myself up for that one. This is the sort of thing I promised myself I wouldn't go overboard on when critiquing.

Short answer: Almost all of the characters have stiff spines, square shoulders and hips, and weight evenly distributed between both feet. There are quite a few things that do look dynamic, like Lucas' hand and A. Everythings head, but the rigid toros kind of overshadow these things. Let 'em loosen up a bit.

Long answer, well...
[Begin Wall o' Text]

In a nutshell, the characters need to be more dynamic. "Dynamic" in this case meaning motion or movement. Right now, the characters are posed sort of like action figures. Their body is in a position of some sort, but they don't look like they're moving.

(Note: "Dynamic" should send a shiver of terror up your spine similar to the one you get from "Anatomy" and "Perspective". Like (shudder) "Negative Space", however, not so many people are familiar with the term.)

Night on Amp Mountain blows this right out of the water: it looks like he put the force of his entire body behind his hand. His hanging head, arched back, and bent knees all show us how much weight went through that motion. Very dynamic.

Annihilate Everything doesn't have the same energy, though. He may have his head thrown back, and his armaments boldly held aloft, but his pose overall doesn't match. The shoulders and hips are square, and the feet are kinda... flat footed, I guess. Since his torso is square, his whole pose seems square, and he looks static.

Lucas presents a whole new level of complication. How do you make a figure look dynamic, when they're just... standing there? Not moving. That's a little harder to answer, but even if he's not moving, he can still express motion.

So how do we express motion?

-Twisting, turning, and tilting; The shoudlers, spine, and hips especially, but also in the limbs.

-Flexing and relaxing; believe it or not, hands will express this much more then any major muscle groups. A limp or clenched hand says a lot about a figure. Heck, hands can be as expressive as faces.

-Shifting Weight; When people walk, the whole body moves to shift it's weight in the process. Hips, spine, and shoulders twist and tilt, arms swing, and the feet pick up and set down. Putting more weight on one foot can change the entire stance of a figure, evoking an impression of walking.

If you want the best example of motion I can think of, look up Michelangelo's David.

There's a couple of other things, like action/reaction and secondary motion (which comes up in animation, but also useful when drawing a figure in motion) but it's 5am and I haven't slept yet. So I'm gonna stop there.

When drawing a character that is actually moving, or in a highly expressive stance, the body can go through it's full range of motion. When a figure is just standing still, however, all it takes is a few subtle changes in the pose to make it look dynamic.

In conclusion:
Almost all of the characters have stiff spines, square shoulders and hips, and weight evenly distributed between both feet. There are quite a few things that do look dynamic, like Lucas' hand and A. Everythings head, but the rigid toros kind of overshadow these things. Let 'em loosen up a bit.

PS: Good gravy, I talk waaay too much. I hope something I said was useful.