Help needed on improving

[Walril]

I need to draw daily or something.

Here is my last PUMMEL. http://www.penciljack.com/forum/show...lril-Pok%E9mon

What could I have done differently to pull out a W?

I'd like to stick to pencils. Can a pencil only beat out color? My digital coloring sucks and quite frankly, Id rather get good traditionally before concentrating on digital.

My problem areas:

- light and shadow. I know a simple area but to me its greek.
- dynamic poses
- i feel like after sketching and cleaning up the lines, my paper still seams dirty with residual pencils. I got erasers out the yinyang but still see it. Possible i need not be so sketchy with my layouts.

I draw not to be a comic artist but because I love to draw. Just sometimes it doesn't translate right.

Thanks

[Inkthinker]

Couple of thoughts:

- My work improved the most when I began to explore underlying structures in illustration. A work may look polished and effortless, but there's a world of messy construction that creates a framework to put the pretty finishes over. Looking at your piece, I'm not seeing any evidence of rough drafting, and that's where you build things from the ground up.

- Pencil is not a "clean" media. That's ink. Trying to make pencil work look "clean" is fighting it. That being said, if you want to use graphite pencil as your finish media, you might consider picking up a colored pencil to create that underlying framework I mentioned before. Red or blue is traditional, and you strip them out digitally in Photoshop (it's an easy trick, a Hue/Saturation shift).

- Back when I was in school, I took a lot of drawing courses that I found frustrating, because I misunderstood the value of what was being showed to me. A lot of classes teach you classical "realism" drawing techniques, and that may not be the sort of drawing you want to do.

The trick is understanding that those lessons are applicable to ALL drawing, not just "realism". Composition, Anatomy and Perspective are valuable knowledge bases for pretty much every type of visual illustration you can imagine. When I buckled down and forced myself to learn more about them, I came to understand that these were not lessons in "how to draw", but rather lessons in "how to solve drawing problems". So if you (like me) found yourself frustrated by teachers who insist on teaching you how to draw a certain way, you may want to take another look at their lessons and then compare what you see there with the works of the artists who exemplify the type of drawing you DO what to explore, and see if you can't find common ground.

[BringerOfStorms]

Hey Walril,
I think technically you had a better piece in that last battle, but it was not as impactful. The simplicity of your image compared to your competition was a hindrence in this case. Humans are pretty simple beasts and can be won over with shiney, or colorful things. I have found if you are going to be a great "pencil only" guy you need to master either hatching (very hard to do) or shading (a bit easier, but still a challenge). Against color a piece that is expertly rendered can certainly win. Check out the two examples below to see what I mean.

Hatching (and spotting 'blacks')


Shading

I have a very hard time doing any hatching! I really like Jim Lee and his style but it does not flow naturally for me. Shading makes more sense to my brain. One thing that may help is just finding some good examples of either and try to emulate that feeling in your drawing.
With a subject as simple as yours you will also have to really punch up the pose, facial expressions and backgrounds to win over with just pencils.
As for keeping it clean, look into building or buying a light box. I use one quite a bit even for just trying different hands, or lower bodies on a piece that is not working. They can be pretty cheap if you look around. I know Adam Hughes is a big light box guy cause he trashes the oringinal paper working up the gesture.

Best of luck. Keep after it. Youre on your way.
Best,
~BoS

[tudore]

Can pencils beat out color? Yes, its certainly doable.

I think your piece had solid conceptualization, but it was simply unfinished.

Drawing daily would definitely be helpful. I've been using posemaniacs, pixelovely, and lovecastle for regular drawing exercises. You can also get on tumblr and DA to find a number of tutorials for improving your drawing.

For books, I'm going to have to recommend the hell out of everything Andrew Loomis ever wrote, as well as Bridgeman, Will Eisner, and Betty Edwards. For specific titles, The technical pen by Gary Simmons is awesome; Ivan Brunetti's Cartooning: philosophy and practice has a host of good conceptual exercises; Sarah Kent's Composition is a cursory art history lesson; Gwen White's Perspective: a guide for artists, architects and designers has a host of terrific examples and is extremely rigorous.

Just find your problem areas and tackle them systemically. If you have an issue with digital coloring, that's a reason to try to find tutorials to break down exactly how its supposed to be done, and look at successful pieces to figure out what you're doing wrong.

[Walril]

I actually have a lightbox. Well its an drs. xray negative viewer but it serves its purpose. Lightboxing now actually on a problem spot.

[Walril]

Do people really know how to create depth or do they just do what their favorite artist do? I ask because I look at famous and not so famous artist and I can clearly see the depth there. But the anatomy is all wrong, but it looks right because it fools the eye. So is it a matter of fooling the eye/brain into fixing the error.
Dont get me wrong, some are just bad, but some are minor but still works. In reality there are no contour lines. No lines to separate the bicep from the brachialis but I see it drawn all the time by use of shadow.

Would drawing every superficial muscle then only darking (using heavy line weight) the side of the muscle opposite the light source fix my flat issues? Would turning every muscle into a simple shape and using that to simplify light hitting it make it work?

I have some anatomy issues, but not so far gone that you cant tell whats what. Its making them look deeper than the thickness of paper is what my problem is.

[BPS Morganza]

Would turning every muscle into a simple shape and using that to simplify light hitting it make it work?

This is how I approach lighting figures, simple shapes with detailed lighting works wonders, having a well lit figure really adds to the drama of a scene as well.

[ReggieR3mote]

Come up with Goals based on what you want to accomplish and write them down. Ok so shadows is hurting you then do a couple life studies a week, get a simple object (cylinder, sphere, cube) and a light source (arm lamp, flash light, candle) and just draw, they don't have to come out as really nice drawings because the point here is to see, see how light is hitting these forms. So take yer sketch book write yourself a goal of 3 studies a week (realistic goals are better than outrageous goals you feel good when you accomplish them as opposed to worse when you don't) and stick too it. This is actually what i'm try to do this summer too i've been getting so caught up in the digital world that i feel like my fundamental drawing skills aren't keeping up. And if anatomy is another issue then take on the same approach, get an anatomy book (life classes are better but may not be available in your area) and tell yourself to do 3-5 studies from that a week too small victories will lead to progress in the long battle.
I'm gonna link some ctrlpaint vid's for you too
ctrlpaint what is a study
ctrlpaint simplifying form
ctrlpaint crosshatch
these are all around 5 mins a piece so this'll be a nice 15 minute lesson. Good luck i hope my advice and these links help out.

[Ed Quinby]

Would drawing every superficial muscle then only darking (using heavy line weight) the side of the muscle opposite the light source fix my flat issues? Would turning every muscle into a simple shape and using that to simplify light hitting it make it work?

Do you really want to do all that delineation? It's pretty far away from your current style. Too bad you don't want to get into digital coloring just yet. In one of the drawing/coloring programs, you could darken your pencils and use color, gradients, ect. to create mass and depth. I think it would go kickass with a simple clean style. Those programs are a headache at first to learn, sometimes even literally, but once mastered, you'll never look back.

[Ncyte77Etern]

Hello Walter,

All the above stuff is excellent advice. Honestly I don't know what I can add that may help, but I imagine if we throw enough mud on the wall then some of it will stick.

I'd say you're biggest obstacle at this point in your development that I see is deciding what "style" you're attempting to cultivate. Of course, one's style is always unique, but us pencil pushers (comic artists) usually settle under a couple off general "roofs" so to speak.

If you want to draw hyper-realistic, anime-like, golden-age, etc.

Once you set your "sights" then it'll be easier to set those goals mentioned in post #8

This I feel is critically relevant because depending on what style of comic artist you want to become determines the type of practice you undertake in honing those "problem areas" you mentioned in your original post. Classical drawing practice helps always, but if you're going to draw in, let's say, an anime-like style, you would be best served (after learning a few basics of general drawing) to practice THAT style and the types of techniques that go along with it.