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Description
In before Delta Grade Shitstorm.

A friend wanted to do an art exchange. Given that it'd been ages since I've made anything finished I decided to oblige and attempt to draw one of her characters. If you're one of my watchers, you're probably from /ic/, which means you probably know of her already. In case you're not from /ic/ or otherwise clueless about internet culture, her name is Owlgem, the character is Lolly (a half-human half-leech thing), and she can be found here:

Now that we've got that out of the way.

Okay, I actually like this one, which makes a nice change. First, the ups. I find the colour scheme pleasing and it's fairly true to what I actually intended when I started scribbling, which is rare to say the least. There's a sense of solidity to it, and I actually like the concept.

Now for the bad.

For starters, it's got that weird muddyness that's common with most of my work. This may in part be due to SAI's generally soft and smudgey brushes, and thus once I actually can be bothered working on the rendering code of the art program I'm working on, I that may change. But besides that, the blending is just generally dicey in places. The lighting isn't perfect either.

As far as anatomy goes, there's weird shit going on with her left (our right) arm, and those hips are way too wide, even given the fact that the character does have wide hips. Also, I'm not going to lie, whilst the dress was entirely intentional, it was also a convenient "escape" from having to draw those pesky, pesky legs. Form-wise, the bottom of the dress doesn't actually make much sense, I'm not sure what those gold things actually are (Patterning? Ropes? Trimmings?), and to top it all off, her chest has almost no sense of solidity because I don't understand how to fucking light things properly, hurr durr. The hair also looks a bit tacky and lacks solidity.

Actually, far less appealing but far more educational was the piece I attempted before this. I won't say much about it besides that it was an okay concept which completely kicked my ass in at least ten different ways. But from the combined pieces, I learned a few lessons today.

They are as follows.

Firstly, don't make an adjustment unless you know where the fuck you're going with it. Far too often I found myself kicking a blob of colour back and forth over the page waiting for it to magically fall into place. This is trial and error drawing, and it's just as bad as guessing how a body part connects rather than looking at a god damned reference and finding out.

Secondly, for the love of god don't treasure shit. I wasted far too much time trying desperately to get the old picture working before I finally ended up making it so horrible that I just dropped it in disgust. It took me maybe 60 seconds to get a shape I wanted with this picture.

Thirdly, know your fucking tools. I was using some slightly different brush settings than usual, and I think that may have been doing more harm that good. Whilst exploring new alternatives is one thing, jumping straight into the deep end without any idea of how they work may not be the brightest of ideas.

Fourthly, perspective is hard. I need to actually work on making environments proper, and placing convincing people in them. Characters suspended in space can only get one so far.

Fifth, I've realized just how little I know about colour and lighting. I've been spending a lot of time on form lately, along with anatomy, but I've been completely neglecting actually making forms in any way besides, you know, sketchy wireframes. Even when I stopped and thought about it, carefully, with intent, I found myself having to do a fair bit of guess work. I'm going to have to do that dreaded drawing from like shit again, aren't I. God damn it.

Finally, in the true habit of "relearning shit I should already know by now", don't let your art muscles atrophy. You get rusty real quickly, and doodling spheres for five minutes a day doesn't actually stop that as much as one might like to believe.

And with that, I open the floor to drunken bottle throwing and threats of sodomy against my mother.

Description
In before Delta Grade Shitstorm.

A friend wanted to do an art exchange. Given that it'd been ages since I've made anything finished I decided to oblige and attempt to draw one of her characters. If you're one of my watchers, you're probably from /ic/, which means you probably know of her already. In case you're not from /ic/ or otherwise clueless about internet culture, her name is Owlgem, the character is Lolly (a half-human half-leech thing), and she can be found here:

Now that we've got that out of the way.

Okay, I actually like this one, which makes a nice change. First, the ups. I find the colour scheme pleasing and it's fairly true to what I actually intended when I started scribbling, which is rare to say the least. There's a sense of solidity to it, and I actually like the concept.

Now for the bad.

For starters, it's got that weird muddyness that's common with most of my work. This may in part be due to SAI's generally soft and smudgey brushes, and thus once I actually can be bothered working on the rendering code of the art program I'm working on, I that may change. But besides that, the blending is just generally dicey in places. The lighting isn't perfect either.

As far as anatomy goes, there's weird shit going on with her left (our right) arm, and those hips are way too wide, even given the fact that the character does have wide hips. Also, I'm not going to lie, whilst the dress was entirely intentional, it was also a convenient "escape" from having to draw those pesky, pesky legs. Form-wise, the bottom of the dress doesn't actually make much sense, I'm not sure what those gold things actually are (Patterning? Ropes? Trimmings?), and to top it all off, her chest has almost no sense of solidity because I don't understand how to fucking light things properly, hurr durr. The hair also looks a bit tacky and lacks solidity.

Actually, far less appealing but far more educational was the piece I attempted before this. I won't say much about it besides that it was an okay concept which completely kicked my ass in at least ten different ways. But from the combined pieces, I learned a few lessons today.

They are as follows.

Firstly, don't make an adjustment unless you know where the fuck you're going with it. Far too often I found myself kicking a blob of colour back and forth over the page waiting for it to magically fall into place. This is trial and error drawing, and it's just as bad as guessing how a body part connects rather than looking at a god damned reference and finding out.

Secondly, for the love of god don't treasure shit. I wasted far too much time trying desperately to get the old picture working before I finally ended up making it so horrible that I just dropped it in disgust. It took me maybe 60 seconds to get a shape I wanted with this picture.

Thirdly, know your fucking tools. I was using some slightly different brush settings than usual, and I think that may have been doing more harm that good. Whilst exploring new alternatives is one thing, jumping straight into the deep end without any idea of how they work may not be the brightest of ideas.

Fourthly, perspective is hard. I need to actually work on making environments proper, and placing convincing people in them. Characters suspended in space can only get one so far.

Fifth, I've realized just how little I know about colour and lighting. I've been spending a lot of time on form lately, along with anatomy, but I've been completely neglecting actually making forms in any way besides, you know, sketchy wireframes. Even when I stopped and thought about it, carefully, with intent, I found myself having to do a fair bit of guess work. I'm going to have to do that dreaded drawing from like shit again, aren't I. God damn it.

Finally, in the true habit of "relearning shit I should already know by now", don't let your art muscles atrophy. You get rusty real quickly, and doodling spheres for five minutes a day doesn't actually stop that as much as one might like to believe.

And with that, I open the floor to drunken bottle throwing and threats of sodomy against my mother.