Female Portrait

[IchI]

Hey, I'm back again I have been pritty much dedicated to my Intuos3 the last couple of days. After the small Hellsing production I was confident with the handle of my pen so I decided to move onto a more complex peace of work. I made this peace very fast for a reason. I think its good for me to actually rush or put pace into my work. If you think about it, when you draw faster your hand is normally more lose, also. I will learn not to make mistakes. There is nothing worse than been an artist who takes 10minutes to draw one line after constantly rubbing it in and out. I was trying to get rid of this at an early stage and try to give my portrait somewhat of an artistic toach.

Here it is anyway, I hope you like it

If I had to comment on it my self. It would be that the line down the side of the face on the left hand side totally messes with the tone. I really need to get rid of it.

The hair across the right eye does not seem natrual.

The bottom of the hair in the bottom left could look better if it faded anyway

 

[The Dark Elf]

not bad, but that looks more than a trace than your other one did where you said it was

 

[IchI]

not bad, but that looks more than a trace than your other one did where you said it was

At the moment I am just using images as a trace, kinda like how you did with that female in your thread thingy. I don't want to just jump into drawing original characters, especially humans. I need to learn how to use my tools first. After I have got some more practice pen work done I am going to move onto artists work.

 

[The Dark Elf]

At the moment I am just using images as a trace, kinda like how you did with that female in your thread thingy. I don't want to just jump into drawing original characters, especially humans. I need to learn how to use my tools first. After I have got some more practice pen work done I am going to move onto artists work.

excuse me but I DONT trace anything, i haven't all my life. If you thought any of mine were traced your very mistaken.

Traced images are instantly recognisable for what they are. They lack proper detail, they are _too_ accurate in the wrong places. Same goes for the cheating method in painter, its too recognisable.

 

[IchI]

Ow, sorry. I didn't realise. But I still think its a good way to learn simple techniques before you go full on and start trying your own stuff.

 

[The Dark Elf]

Ow, sorry. I didn't realise. But I still think its a good way to learn simple techniques before you go full on and start trying your own stuff.

Tracing teaches you nothing though. Your best off doing tutorials, learning about color and lighting/shadow. Drawing real world objects, things you can't trace even if you wanted to, simple stuff to begin with, fruit baskets etc. Force yourself not to trace, you'll be glad of it.

 

[NeLi]

That's great

 

[Yuri]

It is really good.. but since it is a trace it really takes away from it, in my opinion. I don't want to sound mean or anything, sorry if I did.

I think you should take The Dark Elf's advice and just draw things you can't trace such as objects (like apples or something), and people. I've been doing this for a couple weeks and I think I've made some huge progress. If you draw every day, like every single day and practice and practice, it gets easier as you go along. You just need determination. If it doesn't look good at first, then keep trying, and eventually you'll see progress.

I don't mean to sound arrogant, sorry if I do. I'm far from a pro, but I'm just trying to help anyway.

 

[IchI]

It is really good.. but since it is a trace it really takes away from it, in my opinion. I don't want to sound mean or anything, sorry if I did.

I think you should take The Dark Elf's advice and just draw things you can't trace such as objects (like apples or something), and people. I've been doing this for a couple weeks and I think I've made some huge progress. If you draw every day, like every single day and practice and practice, it gets easier as you go along. You just need determination. If it doesn't look good at first, then keep trying, and eventually you'll see progress.

I don't mean to sound arrogant, sorry if I do. I'm far from a pro, but I'm just trying to help anyway.

Thats what I am planning, but its been litrally 4 years since I have drawn by hand and its pritty much my first time with photoshop and a graphic tablet. I don't want to go rushing into making perpective objects when I don't even have a clue how to draw with my ink/pixels thingys. I am planning to move off this kind of stuff pritty dam soon. I just need to get some fundimental foundations if you use an image to trace you can compare the different in effect and see how well you are doing with gradation and other things. Also, when you first picked up a pencil pen etc... didn;t you always just draw on something, see what it could do? Its kind of the same thing. I think it helps at the start. I can't say its going to be going on long, maybe another 1 or 2. But anyway. I do understand Dark Elfs advise and I am going to follow it. I just think it will be easier in the long run if I do a very little amount of what I am doing atm.

Thanks

 

[The Dark Elf]

Thats what I am planning, but its been litrally 4 years since I have drawn by hand and its pritty much my first time with photoshop and a graphic tablet. I don't want to go rushing into making perpective objects when I don't even have a clue how to draw with my ink/pixels thingys. I am planning to move off this kind of stuff pritty dam soon. I just need to get some fundimental foundations if you use an image to trace you can compare the different in effect and see how well you are doing with gradation and other things. Also, when you first picked up a pencil pen etc... didn;t you always just draw on something, see what it could do? Its kind of the same thing. I think it helps at the start. I can't say its going to be going on long, maybe another 1 or 2. But anyway. I do understand Dark Elfs advise and I am going to follow it. I just think it will be easier in the long run if I do a very little amount of what I am doing atm.

Thanks

But your still not learning anything from tracing. Your simply making a carbon copy.. Does a photocopier learn how to paint if it copies a rembrant?


All tracing does is let you make that one image your tracing from, it doesn't teach you how to draw lines, shading, how and where to place shadows. Anything you could learn (which is next to nothing) from tracing, will be useless on anything else. You'll eventually become to depend on tracing to do anything. The only way you'll properly learn is by drawing/painting random objects and gradually creating your own style and technique from it. Granted from time to time you might use techniques that others use, but you'll still have your own that your comfortable with.

Tracing is just a bad habit, like smoking.

 

[Yuri]

Thats what I am planning, but its been litrally 4 years since I have drawn by hand and its pritty much my first time with photoshop and a graphic tablet. I don't want to go rushing into making perpective objects when I don't even have a clue how to draw with my ink/pixels thingys. I am planning to move off this kind of stuff pritty dam soon. I just need to get some fundimental foundations if you use an image to trace you can compare the different in effect and see how well you are doing with gradation and other things. Also, when you first picked up a pencil pen etc... didn;t you always just draw on something, see what it could do? Its kind of the same thing. I think it helps at the start. I can't say its going to be going on long, maybe another 1 or 2. But anyway. I do understand Dark Elfs advise and I am going to follow it. I just think it will be easier in the long run if I do a very little amount of what I am doing atm.

Thanks

Well, I still think that tracing isn't going to teach you much at all.

Just because a drawing looks bad when you do it, doesn't mean that you didn't learn from it. For a while, they aren't going to be what you want, but they are going to help you tremendously. You just need to do it yourself, really, as tracing won't really let you learn from your mistakes. Every now and then you'll do a drawing that you like, and eventually you'll like it even more.

Also, I suggest you go online and find tutorials on what to do, buy books and such and study on it, as I beleive those help you tremendously.

Oh, and go to www.conceptart.org if you want to see a helluva lot of fantastic artists for inspiration.

 

[CR0M]

I'm confused. Are we talking 'drawing lines over a photo' like carbon paper, or a trace filter?

 

[Yuri]

I'm confused. Are we talking 'drawing lines over a photo' like carbon paper, or a trace filter?

I think he is using a tablet-- so I was picturing him taking a picture and drawing over it using the computer, or puting the picture over the tablet and tracing the lines or something. That is what I was basing my ranting s about, so please elaborate for me if I'm wrong, Ichi.

 

[IchI]

I think I understand what you mean now. I will stop tracing.

What I was doing was using a digital image inside of photoshop and using 3 layers:

Layer1: Transparent background, used for all my black ink
Layer2: Digital image with an opaticity of 30
Layer3: White background image used instead of the standard opaticity textue in photshop.

Thanks for all your help. I will start my own work today

 

[The Dark Elf]

I think I understand what you mean now. I will stop tracing.

What I was doing was using a digital image inside of photoshop and using 3 layers:

Layer1: Transparent background, used for all my black ink
Layer2: Digital image with an opaticity of 30
Layer3: White background image used instead of the standard opaticity textue in photshop.

Thanks for all your help. I will start my own work today

Something that helped me a lot when getting used to a tablet, and something I still do for fun is quicksketching. Pick a subject, like whatever is infront of you, the monitor, a camera, a cup whatever. Then sketch it quickly, don't worry about details just try get the overall form right so its recognisable for what it is. I found it helped quite a bit with becoming familiar with the pen. As I say though, don't worry about details or perfect accuracy, its just to get you used to drawing what you see, once your used to it from doing that, then start to develop your own techniques for coloring/shading etc. Try different methods and see which you prefer, but don't stick with one if it feels uncomfortable to you, just move on and do another. And don't fret if you can't (and you probably wont) be able to mimic other art for a long time, thats not something to worry about. Develop your own style, realistic or cartoonish. Thats your preference and always remember if someone doesn't like it, there's probably ten other people who do. So avoid critism unless its constructive, if someone goes and gives you a lot of pointers, pay attention to them, if they say its crap and don't give a good reason why, ignore them.

Also don't forget to play around with the tablet settings. The default ones aren't for everyone, I had to fine tune those a lot, and individually for each app I use (a great feature is that) so you might find you can do better using different settings, they do make a bigger difference than it seems.

Most importantly, don't give up. Yeah it'll be difficult, yeah you'll think whats the point, but stick with it and you'll be glad you did.

 

[Sui]

errrr... ye i agree with dark elf, origonal work rules

and gl Ichi =P

 

[Big Fat Duck]

that gap in the teeth is disgusting and ugly

 

[hiln]

wait, do you guys consider say having a photo of a person on the computer screen, and you scetching it on your desk another form of tracing?

 

[Yuri]

wait, do you guys consider say having a photo of a person on the computer screen, and you scetching it on your desk another form of tracing?

I don't. That is a step down from drawing from life, but it still teaches you a lot, I think.

Tracing = drawing over another person's work or photo with translucent tracing paper, or with a computer program

For me, at least.

 

[The Dark Elf]

Yep, anything that involves the original image below the one your making is considered tracing.

Painter also has a clone feature which as far as I'm concerned is the same as tracing/cheating. However it actually gives really nasty results in practice, I don't think anyone uses it apart from newbies messing around or parents screwing about with photo's of their kids.

 

[CR0M]

I use photos as ready made eye-dropper colour palettes, and sometimes a photo for image reference, but direct tracing and any other filter/shortcut/cheat is not only lame it makes piccies look shat.

 

[The Dark Elf]

I use photos as ready made eye-dropper colour palettes, and sometimes a photo for image reference, but direct tracing and any other filter/shortcut/cheat is not only lame it makes piccies look shat.

for getting color like you described, yup thats fine, nothing wrong with that, it saves screwing about for half an hour trying to get all the correct shades.

As references, again thats fine and most artists do that too. Having loads of references to make sure all the different parts of an image fit together, as in making a new image entirely. Thats par for the course and only a very few really talented artists can work directly from memory with no refs whatsoever (I'm not one of those, yet lol)

Agreed with the tracing/filter/shortcut/cheats etc. They do make things look crap. There's tons of tutorials out there for Painter showing how to use the clone tool to make watercolor or oil paintings. They look terrible. The entire clone feature simply doesn't give a good results, I did a test once, and I found a completely original work, working from references not only looked better, had better detail and resembled the reference image more, the clone method took longer, and just looked like some photoshop filter had been applied to it, heck even the color didn't look right, and it was cloning the damn colors lol.

So yeah in short, cheating in any way is going to show up, and the work is going to suffer. Besides not only that, but where's the fun in it. Best part of painting for me is the actual painting and seeing how it changes over time. Without that then there's very little point in doing it in the first place, might aswell simply post the original reference photo and make do with that heh.

 

[EVIL]

But your still not learning anything from tracing. Your simply making a carbon copy.. Does a photocopier learn how to paint if it copies a rembrant?

Mine did! :naughty:

anyway, yeah, what fenric said, tracing is bad, it does not give you skill, only practice does.

you need to understand before you can apply, you need to be able to calculate a formula before you can get the result, its the same with art, you need to understand what makes a figure, a face, how the bones look and work, how the muscles are placed upon the bones, etc.

You need to know how light reacts on certain materials, yu need to know how shadow falls. Tracing gives you nothing, its wasting your time. learn to understand, and you can apply.