Great OP pic.

>>27058

>using a slab serif font

You're right, it really does fit the propaganda poster style. I spent some time trying out a few different options(Sabelia, Dehuti, Clarendon, and Permian). When I compared each font, and took into account how well each one scaled down to 300x100, Permian was my favorite.
So here is the new Lenin is a Mushroom banner which also incorporates your suggested text changes. Thanks again for that; I should have asked Ernst for translation help sooner.
Oh, and I was able to copy/paste text from >>27061 so I didn't have to type cyrillic characters after all.

Currently drawing a house wren. Will post when it’s further along

>>27133

>Lenin was a [...].png

You apparently always best yourself. Looks awesome.

Also great team work with Belarus.
I hope that Ernstchanmott will include it into banner rotation within a narrow time frame.

>>27133
Very nice, good job.

>took into account how well each one scaled down to 300x100

Yeah, I forgot about that. Slab serif fonts were designed mostly for newspaper headlines and posters, so they might have looked pretty bad or outright unintelligible on a smaller picture.

>>27145
Looking forward to it. Although I hope my saying that doesn't feel like added pressure to finish. I personally have trouble working under expectations like that. It starts a cycle of obsessively correcting insignificant details X^DD.

>>27148
Thank you.

>great team work with Belarus.

Agreed. It's always nice to get ideas/feedback from Ernst, and this banner is definitely better because of it.
Now that it's finished, I'll post it to the thread in /meta/.

>>27149
The 300x100 scale was a real wildcard with slab serifs. While working full size at 600x200, I would adjust the text in each font and then cross my fingers as I resized them. Pic related.

>>27198
Clarendon and Sabelia bold look best I think. What's up with the symbols on the flag though? Shouldn't it have either a mushrooms or hammer and sickle? I can't even tell what that is but it looks kinda like the Sophons faction symbol for Endless Space 2.

>>27202

>Clarendon and Sabelia bold look best I think.

I liked Sabelia bold the best at 600x200, but when reduced I was concerned about it becoming illegible. Here it is at 300x100; is it clear enough? I'll post Clarendon, too.

>What's up with the symbols on the flag though?

To break up the reds, I took the symbol from the Mushroom Kingdom. I did a bit of warping to match the waving flags, so they might not be clear. Should I adjust them?

>it looks kinda like the Sophons faction symbol for Endless Space 2.

You're right, it does.

>>27211
Yeah I think the first one looks totally fine

>Should I adjust them?

Definitely you should

>>27214

>Definitely you should

Ok, this is much better. I think the key is to have one clear mushroom to give the viewer's eye a frame of reference to interpret the rest of them. The first pic is to show what I changed, the second is Sabelia Bold font, and the third is Clarendon.

>>27227
Honestly it still just looks like the Sophons. Tbh mate I think what you should probably do is scrap the idea of using a Mario mushroom altogether for this one because it's already not very distinct as a mushroom on its own.

>>27233
I see the mario shroom. I am actually finding it hard to see the other symbl beyond the barest similarities in rounded shape.

Spending way too much time trying to do this by hand. It's especially hard on a laptop touchpad :-DDD

t. 6 billion hours in paint pro

I give up tbh. Maybe one of you guys like the idea though at least.

>>27247
I did a thing :D

>>27248
Damn son. Way to separate the casuals from the pros :-DDD

>>27252
The font is really nice though, you have a good sense of visual design. Maybe you should get into something like stencil or lino printing

It's a pretty ebin and relaxing hobby. It's like mspaint, but IRL :-D

>>27233

>scrap the idea of using a Mario mushroom altogether

In the original poster the flags were set against a lot of negative space(pic 1). With the 3x1 format that space was eliminated, and then after adding the mushroom cap I began to worry it was too red. I could be wrong, my judgment with colors often is X^D. Anyway, Here is one more attempt to improve the mushrooms. In light of >>27234 I kept the changes subtle, and only tried to sharpen areas which might be visually confusing.
Pic two is another lineup for comparison, including a version without the mushroom flags. The font is Clarendon, because that one is really growing on me.

>>27247
Text on a curved path-by hand? Using a touchpad? 6 billion hours seems pretty fast tbh X<D.
I really like the concept.

>>27248
Awsome.

>>27253
It's not my design tbh. That's why it's good :-D

>>27255
I think part of the problem is I also never played Mario for the most part, so my brain is not identifying the Mario symbol. It just looks like some glyph composed of two circles and looks nothing like a mushroom to me.

I get what you're trying to do conceptually and I like the concept and referencing but
https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=mario+mushroom&FORM=HDRSC2
problem is the base material just doesn't look like a mushroom really. In this case I'd defer to others and see what ernst thinks. To me this is a case of what I know many types of artists including writers suffer where they get attached to the idea but it becomes more about their pet concept itself and the overall work suffers for it because it doesn't work with the greater whole but they become too attached to the idea.

I've probably done this myself numerous times when writing. I'm tired af and having a hard time finding the words for it right now but it's this specific thing I think writers and some painters, composers etc do, like say you happen to enjoy one note so much and just have to incorporate it into something, but it doesn't work with the overall piece and so all you end up hearing as the listener is an otherwise decent song marred with this one irritating or just bizarre off-note that keeps making you think "what the fuck was that?" In the case here I don't think it's that much of a distraction but it's noticeable enough every time I'd see it I'd be looking at this glorious thing entirely beyond my capabilities with just that one off note, like a scratch in the roof of your mouth while you're eating your meal.

I think that done right it can even become a sort of The Kramer or Mona Lisa smile, but more often than not it just becomes something that doesn't work with the composition. I think that in frame 3 pic 2, and in pic 3, that it kinda now works but I think that it's ultimately just more conceptually gratifying than visually coherent. If that makes any sense.

t. doesn't actually know what he's talking about
oh this just reminds me, so I was in pottery class long time ago and I made this, not sure how to call it like an esoteric edgelord thing. Everybody else was supposed to make a jug with a face on it in my ceramics class and I was going for some dark apocalyptic thing, and my teacher suggested putting a blue teardrop on it. That is the number one best example I can think of of a piece of art getting this one piece that doesn't actually go together at all neither conceptually really nor particularly aesthetically in any sort of coherence. But then again, too many cooks spoil the broth, if you catch my driftI'm saying if what you're doing is not a supremely satisfying scratching of the assburger urge to wrap multiple references together and have Mario mushroom people but part of what you're doing then clearly you should ignore my input entirely as I always trust the vision of the artist above all elsebut I still think it makes the composition mildly visually incoherent particularly if you're going so far as trying to find really old school revolutionary era Slavic font

Rate 6 billion more hours in paint.

>>27273

>To me this is a case of what I know many types of artists including writers suffer where they get attached to the idea but it becomes more about their pet concept itself and the overall work suffers for it because it doesn't work with the greater whole but they become too attached to the idea.

I admit I've become so focused on making the mushrooms work, that I haven't spent time considering if they actually make the art piece better. I mean, their placement wasn't really the fulfillment of a concept, it was simply a coloring decision. And even that was a close judgement call. My initial post in the old drawing thread included a version without the mushrooms; I was still on the fence about them. However, once I set to work fixing the font I never really stepped back to evaluate any other aspect. Instead, my only concern was proper technical execution.
This reminds me of a project I did for an art class. After spending a week drawing chess pieces(it was 24"×48"), I had the idea to add chess notation to the background. To make it even more 'clever' I copied the notation from a famous chess match. What did the teacher say? "I wish you hadn't done that". Specifically, he said the notation "cheapened" the piece. Pic related.
Anyway, your comments have made me realize that I might be repeating that mistake. I think I managed to set the mushrooms fairly well, and they are identifiable enough, but that shouldn't be the main point. The point is, as you said, visual coherance. To that end, digital mushrooms are objectively anachronistic on a retro poster. It comes down to making a decision, of course. To that end, in order to make banners as timeless as possible, it's best if I avoid tangential meta-level references. There's actually a saying I've heard related to cartooning. In order to keep compositions immediately clear: When in doubt, Leave it out. That probably applies here, too.

>>27280
Nice take on assberger strength. What is the context of the original image?

>>27305
I dont know I kind of like the chess composition like that. It truly makes it stand out as unique to me, rather than just another art class exercise in depth in object drawing and I think your teacher may have been wrong. I had an art teacher once who gave me (and frankly almost everyone else) shit about what I was doing, part of which was my abject failure to follow his instructions to such an extent I suspect he thought I was doing it on purpose to spite him rather than my complete lack of awareness, including one time when he specifically said any paper except newsprint and made a point about that but all I could remember is him explicitly saying something about newsprint, so I decided he probably was specifically saying make sure to only draw it on newsprint. He also gave us a self portrait in a mirror assignment but I only did my eye in a pocket mirror which I'm sure he took issue with but was about the only professional looking thing I ever achieved in that class and another classmate also was all "I actually like it." Hell fuck it why not I might even try and dig up a picture and post it in case anyone here cares, just because I sincerely doubt anyone is ever going to be here that'll make it identifiable as me.

But yeah regarding yours I'd have to say, your art teacher might be wrong. I'd probably have to see a real life sized version to judge better than this thumbnail

>>27305
It's a fairly common picture related to a compilation album released in the 80s called Strength thru Oi!

I don't know why I'm exhausted after only a couple drawings. I'm having this uncomfortable feeling like I'm scraping against the limits of my intelligence.
I'm trying to understand how motorcycles work, since I'm planning on adding one to desert helmet. Lots of bits and bobs in there. The overall shape and composition is easy enough, but the things inside the frame are an incomprehensible mess to me so far. I need to do research.

Anatomy is still fucking me up, trying to memorize all of the muscles and where they slot in is quite difficult and frustrating. But I think I've devised a method to deal with it. A lot of anatomy resources approach the subject in terms of lines and relationships between lines. I do not understand lines. I understand shapes and volumes. So I'm thinking maybe next time I will try to study anatomy in terms of a bunch of blobs stacked on top of each other, rather than lines wrapping around a skeleton.

I know I should probably do more finished stuff, but I feel like a good idea is wasted if it's not executed well. Which means conveying not just the idea of something, but an actual depiction of it. Be it the human body or a motorcycle. Which means I'm going to have to draw a lot of motorcycles now.

There a difference between "finishing" something, and really finishing it. That level of professional polish and detail that elevates the work to the fulfillment of its potential. The last 10% of progress that requires 90% of the effort. This level of diligence and work ethic is something I've always envied in others and wanted for myself. But so far, I only have two shitty sketches.

>>27324

>I think your teacher may have been wrong

Thank you, ernst. That was an old picture, so tbh I can't even judge the full-sized version myself. Maybe the scale makes a difference, maybe it doesn't. The funny thing is, whether teachers are correct or not, their words have a lasting impact. I mean, we're still thinking about them, right?
And of course I'd be interested in seeing that drawing. If it's just an eye, there's no risk of being identified. Heck, I could post some of my old self-portraits and not be identified :D. Seriously, though, they really are bad so I won't do that. I'm much happier with the cartoon self-portrait I posted in the old drawing thread.

>>27325
Thanks. I'm not sure I've seen that one before.

>>27328
I get that exhaustion from drawing, too. Even though I'm not physically moving much, the mental energy drain is real. You've sketched a decent motorcycle even without all the detail bits. If that's the floor you're going to improve upon, then desert helmet is going to have a pretty awesome set of wheels.

Motorcycles are pretty fun to sketch. Very interesting shapes.
The hardest part is making the wheels round :-DDDD.

>>27336
Having looked at how other artists solve similar problem, the answer seems to be obvious: they just hide the details (usually in shadow), and only imply parts of it, just enough for the inaccuracy not to stick out.

It seems pretty obvious now that you don't need to literally reinvent the motorcycle from scratch in order to draw it, but not having someone explicitly instruct you to do something correctly, you end up trying out dozens of incorrect things before arriving at the solution.

>>27339

>2, 4

Man, the old school silhouette for bikes was so much cooler.

>>27340
Whenever I look for reference related to automotive design, technology, computers, etc., I always add "70s" to the search.

I think it was the most aesthetic era of american design tbh. 60s are a bit too retro for me, in the 80s everything looked too boxy, 90s is when everything went really ugly and cars started looking like bars of soap.

70s cars and motorcycles, on the other hand, are pure sex. Them curves, man.

>>27342
I like vintage British mechanical aesthetics more than American ones tbh. They just feel more 'right' to me. Dunno how to properly explain it.

I was enjoying Radio Ernstiwan today.

Quick sketch of Ork on mongolian-like armor. I actually wanted to draw a picture or set of picture with mongolian-like orks in style of world war I, where traditional mongolian helmet combines with greatcoat, metal-wooden rifles and mix of dinosaurs and rats like some proto-ice age animal who drags artilery etc. but has no any time and will to draw nowdays so I'll pertty shure I'll abadon this as usual

>>27459
Also this picture don't created to offence anyone. I just love orks. And like mongol stuff. And great war.

>>27459
You've put a lot of thought into the concept; even if you don't finish it, thanks for sharing this sketch. All the larger ideas that I have involve simple drawings that are interconnected-like comic panels-rather than epic scenes like you described. I can do cartoons where multiple characters interact, but doing that with more complex anatomy is still difficult.

I had an idea for a 1960's style background for this >>27377, and since I was going to draw a lava lamp it seemed like that would make a nice bit of animation. Getting the motion smooth took a lot more adjustments than I anticipated. Luckily lava changes shape as it rises and falls, so that gave me a wide margin for error :~D. The finger has 3 different frames which repeat in a cycle, and the lava has 12. Btw each frame is shown twice(back-to-back). I learned doing the Johnny Bravo juggling image that 24 frames at 12.5/fps looks better than 12 frames at 7/fps.

>>27532
Noice.

>>27532
Great work mate, saved!

>>27145
Update: haven’t done much with this drawing due to the fall semester (been pretty busy between biochem, stuff for my lab, insect collecting, etc.)

I think I need to get better at managing my time. I will finish the wren drawing eventually.

>>27532
Well, I'am bad drawer and artist. I actually always interested in creating worlds, plots, generate ideas, but I has no actual skill or actual will to finish anything so pretty much anything I have in mind I abadon and not finishing it because well.. yeas, I'll never have an opportunity to finish anything on level I have in mind

You done cool animation on this picture. And like how you done his foot, looks like "more realistic version" of ernstkrot :D

>>27542
>>27550
Thank you.

>>27555
Real life® always tries to interfere with our art X^DDD.

>>27569

>like how you done his foot, looks like "more realistic version" of ernstkrot :D

Thanks. I enjoy experimenting with different ways to anthropomorpize moles. Large feet and a small rounded head seem to give me the best results. Moles also have large claws, but I learned a while ago that those don't work well on cartoons. They make the character seem too threatening, and I try to make Ernstwurf look curious, or like he's interested in something.
Nice coloring on the orc. If you keep adding lines like that you could end up finishing after all :<DDD. Don't worry about finishing something as perfect as it is in your mind. That's a long-term goal that you can only reach by doing one drawing after the other. No single drawing is good enough, but if you have the time and enjoy drawing, keep doing them. Eventually you can look back and notice a progression in skill level. At least that's been my hope experience.

I've been refining this drawing on and off for a few days; I think it's as done as I can make it...for now :D. Out of all the details, I think that lead bird turned out the best.

Been a while.
Trying out the finneliner + marker sketching technique. Always been a fan of this sort of look. Unfortunately, I didn't plan ahead and ran out of space to put his arms :-DDD. Also my lines suck.

>>28062
I really like the perspective on the buildings. I'd try extending the canvas to the right to capture more of the city scape, and give a real sense of dizzying height. I think it'd add some nice tension.

>>27569
I have same settis. I get stuck when I realize that my current skill level is not enough to finish a drawing in the way I like it. I know how the finished work must look, but I can't get it there.

But I think there's value in finishing stuff even if it turns out worse than you'd like, because in order to develop the skill of getting the drawing from start to finish, you must practice finishing drawings, as redundant as it sounds. It's like mastering a video game: you don't restart the entire game the moment you make a mistake, you keep making mistakes until you finish the game. Then you finish the game again but make less mistakes, etc. If you start over every time you hit the part you're bad at, you'll end up practicing the parts you're already (relatively) good at, which is counter productive.
Now if only I followed my own advice.

>>28827
Man, Space Western is one of the tightest aesthetics.

>>28827

>I have same settis. I get stuck when I realize that my current skill level is not enough to finish a drawing in the way I like it. I know how the finished work must look, but I can't get it there.

I get this with 3D modeling. Been reading "Thinking, Fast and Slow" by Kahneman and what he describes about concentration and motivation (in terms of his metaphor "System 1 & 2") might actually explain this hurdle for various creative endeavours. Without inherent motivation it's a drag to start any task, but once started a flow can occur. However, when still in the learning phase, any kind of flow is often interrupted, for example when looking at the work and wondering how to continue. At this point the "continuing" is in practice the same thing as "starting a task" and you are likely to have exhausted concentration and motivation temporarily and what lies ahead is nothing that you have learned to automate (eg. System 1 task) but that requires deliberate thinking and concentration.
I've found that one thing works quite well in this scenario: Go do something physical for 15 minutes, like washing dishes or a short workout, or the laundry, then eat/drink something with sugar to give a quick rush of energy and immediately sit down and try to continue where you left of.
So far, this has worked about half the time, which is much better than my previous stat of "almost never".

>>28827

>finneliner + marker sketching technique.

I like it; the look is similar to line+ink wash. That's the technique I'd really like to get better at. It combines the conscious decision making of a drawing, with the unpredictabiliy of a watercolor. I think my art would benefit from adding in that looseness.

Thanks for the input on >>28062. That one still feels unfinished, like I could do more with the idea. I was trying to pull the viewers eye towards the upper right corner, but maybe shifting that focus beyond the character and over the city could work better.

>>28833

>At this point the "continuing" is in practice the same thing as "starting a task" and you are likely to have exhausted concentration and motivation temporarily and what lies ahead is nothing that you have learned to automate (eg. System 1 task) but that requires deliberate thinking and concentration.

That is incredibly accurate. Drawing is easy until I hit an idea gap, where I don't know what line comes next. From that point on, adding each new detail involves a period of debate over this/that. The natural flow of the initial sketch is halted in its tracks. It's like starting over, with all the anxiety and indecision I feel with a blank page.

>>28839
I was thinking maybe something like this, to give that "oh shit, I'm about to fall" feeling.

The converging lines of the buildings already pull the eye towards the bottom of the image, and I think this aspect can be leveraged by making those elements even stronger, to give the viewer the feeling that they're being pulled down by gravity. The "fish eye" circular motion of the horizon would give a strong rightwards motion, pulling the viewer out of the stable vertical line of the building on the left, as if they're about to fall off.

I think it would add a great deal of disorienting acrophobia, which ties in nicely with the subject of the drawing.

>>28833
Interestingly, a similar technique is recommended to deal with ADHD. Whenever your ability to concentrate wanes and you get restless and distracted, just get up, do something else, walk around, listen to a song, etc. for 5 minutes. Then when your dopamine supply is restored, get back to work.

Regarding contemplation, sometimes it seems to be helpful to just sleep on it, if you're really stuck. The brain does some mysterious subconscious calculations in the background, and the next time you get to work, you know exactly what needs to be done.

>>28841
Wow, thank you; that's exactly what this drawing needed, and on top of that you've given me a great benchmark to strive for. Now I have no excuse, and can't get away with half-a**ing this thing :^D.

I made a vector ouline of the Ernstleaf logo, and will post it here in case anyone ever needs it for something. The archive has 2 .svg files: One outline with a white background, and one which is transparent.

I was just figuring out a comfortable workflow for the pen + wash method when my stylus crapped itself again. God damn it fucking chink shit quality electronics. I guess I'll stick to regular pen and paper for now, since I wanted to improve my drawing skills anyway.
But fuck, it's probably the third one this year or something. I wonder if those new battery less stylus pens that come from newer models of tablets have better QC. I thought of maybe buying like three of the things at once, but that'd cost almost as much as a brand new tablet.

I wonder if that's their business model. Razor and blades and all that.

>>28844
Giving advice on other people's stuff is easy :-DDD. You don't have to make any decisions, just tweak other people's stuff.

Fuck it, I'm gonna keep drawing with a mouse.
I don't really use pressure sensitivity anyway.

>>28989
Sorry to hear about the pen; I think that does make three this year. Is this the drawing it died on? It's excellent work; I like how you used thin colored lines within the broad strokes to create depth and texture. It's very loose and energetic.

>>28993
I guess you answered my question while I was writing it :^DD.

literally 100000 hours in mspaint

>>28994
Well, I have partially myself to blame, because whenever the pen starts malfunctioning, I try to "fix" it, and end up breaking it permanently. I've broken a lot of stuff in my life by trying to tinker with it.
But to be far, when you're in the middle of drawing and your pen starts leaving faint trails, or some mechanism inside goes loose, throwing off your sense of pressure, it's really frustrating. Not sure what's worse, a pen that doesn't work at all or a pen that constantly fucks with your process.
Oh well, I have a design commission pending, maybe if it goes ok, I can order a new one. Will have to wait for another month.

I'm not going to fuck with the pen any more, though. I guess half-working is better than not working at all, at the end of the day.

>>29002
You should use OG windows XP paint, man. New paint has anti-aliasing on the brushes, which causes artifacts when using the fill bucket.

Classic MSpaint is unironically a better drawing experience than anything else microsoft has made. Even their new windows ink workspace is gimped - no RGB color selector. They finally add out of the box pen pressure support in windows 10, make software for sketching, but fail to add the one feature that would turn it into a viable, if minimalist, option for drawing. How can you fuck up like that man.

Bump

Created some OC based on a 2014 Australian poster.
What do you think, guys?
In retrospect, I'd say it's "Much ado about nothing"

>>30366
really sad attempt at boot licking

>>30366
the last point is not true tho, you can make it, when you stick to a few basic principles.

>>30369
I already said that with the spoilered part.

>>28841
Thanks again for the advice on this one; extending the city and adding a bit of fish-eye perspective made a huge difference. There is a much more pronounced sense of falling, which my original vertical format didn't capture. I also tweaked the colors a little bit, because I still tend to under-saturate and am trying to fix that.

>>30366
I like it. To address what >>30370 said, the last line could be changed from "you will not" to "shitposters will not", or something similar.

>>30366
lol saved

I really need to get some sort of graphics design software besides mspaint.

>>30406
GIMP works wonders once you delve more seriously into the toolbox it has.

Rate some of my artwork. I don't know where to go, what direction to follow.

>>30412
I think you need to work on perspective a bit more. The second one for example while I do like it it's also the most clear out of all four how much you seemingly struggle with perspective and the exploration of space and distance. Like the detailing itself looks fine but you really need to work on how well you're representing a three dimensional space because they all look kind of flat. I think that the one just exposes it so much because while conceptually it is cool it also exposes this lack the most by relying the most on accurate representations of space to achieve those illusions.

>>30412
Colour

>>30416
Nice, is it yours?

>>30417
No its in the rijksmuseum lol

Everyone here is out of my league, but I'll post some drawings anyway. Hopefully the CAPTCHA will work this time.

>>30412
Deliberate, targeted practice, rather than drawing what's in front of you without a goal.
Focus on one skill, be it values, composition, anatomy, draftsmanship, color, design, etc. Start a work with the deliberate intention of studying that skill, the work itself and the subject of the work only being grounds for experimentation and exploration.
That's the "what to do next" as far as improvement goes.

Regarding the "what to do" in an existential sense, you should have some philosophical idea of what art means to you, and where you want to go with it. What you want to bring forth to the world, what you want to explore through art, what you think art should be, etc. And that's your overarching journey as an artist, the thing that will guide your development. And said goal doesn't have to be anything grandiose, you can spend a lifetime and more unraveling one simple concept to an ever exceeding level of finesse. Just find that one thing about reality or experience of being that resonates with you, and work towards required level of mastery to convey it in image.

>>30412
I rate your art works breddy gud

>>30435
The CAPTCHA is tricky when I'm uploading pictures. If I take too long it times out, and then when the page reloads the little 'x' to remove or add images isn't there. I just clear my cookies and then it goes back to normal.
Thanks for sharing some of your drawings; I like the earth wizard charcter. And don't worry about who is better or worse. We all have the same goal, to improve, and are here to help each other do that.

>>30476
I gave up posting here because of the captcha.

I used this sketch to practice a more relaxed coloring style. I then decided that I need more practice :DD.

>>31148
I always like your color and style. You ave things you can improve, but every time I seen your pic on preview I feel like it actual illustration from decent british book for kids lol. Don't know why, maybe your use of colors.

Anyway, I'am kind of working on illustration for my yt channel top.

Some digital studies.

>>31161
Thank you, ernst. I think it is the colors which create that illustrated look. I used a watercolor tool for that, and turned up the "blend setting" to let the colors mix naturally on the image. So it's very loose, and looks more like a traditional medium.

>illustration

I really like how you handled the horizontal composition. The castle creates a line which pulls the eye across the entire image, ending on the character as a focal point. I struggle doing anything horizontal, and you may have noticed that almost all of my stuff is either square, or vertical.

>>31167
Nice work. Your use of light in the landscape is impressive.
t.Bad with light

Another drawing colored with the watercolor tool. I'm enjoying the added color-blending variable, and the subtle randomness it produces. In a way, that feels like sketching, where you just jot down a dozen quick strokes, and without trying to control where they go, can stumble upon the best lines.

Making sprites is hard

This was supposed to be a computer mouse / assassin bug creature. I wanted to design a monster since I’ve been thinking about the monster collector game genre lately. Clearly pixel art is not something one can just pick up without practice and excel at.

Second pic shows examples of some pretty decent monster sprites from a recently released monster collector game, Disc Creatures. These sprites are not sophisticated but they have character.

>>32128
Well, there a lot of technics to actually make pixel-art like graphics. Sometimes, for example, for NES it was done in grayscale and then it had applied pallete. Some other made drwaings or art and then compressed it for VGA/Amiga/whatever color palette and lower resolution.
As you can see, I also did some lazy attempts/experiments while testing stuff for game I have in mine imagination in tryig to mimic some early VGA CRPG games.

>>31210

>I really like how you handled the horizontal composition. The castle creates a line which pulls the eye across the entire image, ending on the character as a focal point. I struggle doing anything horizontal, and you may have noticed that almost all of my stuff is either square, or vertical.

I didn't even thought about something, it just youtube top part shold be wide, so if anything ended be great, it just happened accidentaly

Here is what I ended with, just without channel logo to not it make some sort of ads on EC.

>>32013
Funny, for some reason I get strong 90s computer art vibe from your picture ^^

I wish I had a tablet pen. But I gave the money from the last commission to mom for bills and stuff.

>>32013
The intense colors remind me of golden age comics. They used to be incredibly vibrant, probably due to limited color palette. Simpler times before airbrushing and gradients.

>>32135
A lot of things in art are accidental. The skill is learning to consistently stumble on those (happy) accidents.

>>32134

>Безымяеный

Dang dude, are you really making pixel art in mspaint. There are some good tools for making pixel art, I think having a palette aware editor is the most important thing.
I think most of the asethetic comes from the limited palette and not so much from the resolution.

You probably already know about this, but I'll post this famous pixel art guide here for completeness:
http://pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=11299
What I like about it is that it touches on the philosophy of pixel art as well as techniques.

>>32128

>This was supposed to be a computer mouse / assassin bug creature.

I'd say that's what it looks like. It seems you made a compromise on the head, drawing it proportionally larger to fit in facial features. If you wanted to make it more like the Disc Creature sprites, then you would have to make that head even bigger and cartoon-like(think Garfield/big expression), which might make it cuter, but it would look less like an actual assassin bug.

>>32135
Nice work, Ernst. Your finished composition is even more impressive.
On the subject of compositions, I wonder if it's common for artists to have formats they're comfortable with, and ones they can't get right. I look at some of my really early stuff, and I've always just drawn vertical. It's weird.

>I get strong 90s computer art vibe from your picture ^^

Thanks. I don't know what elements created that connection, but I definitely take it as a compliment :D.

>>32138
Handling family responsibilities is admirable.

My trick for colors has been one I picked up from you: play with that saturation slider. My first choices are never the ones I end up using, but I can't see that until I have something to compare it with. I have a lot of respect for anyone who can select colors on real life surfaces. Once you put them down, there's no going back-at least not easily.

>>32138
Well, it was more or less just a test of things, and I'll not finish last one. It is one where I tried to mimic more of master of orion-style in some parts, but it was kind of long ago.

Information you provided more in style of modern understanding of pixelart based on art from console games and their limitations, from there came this rules. On IBM PC it was more as "ah, fuck, whatever" for the most part. Obviously when you have limits of CGA, you need deal with heavy color limits. After, even in 16 colors EGA it was just dudes paiting their stuff in Paintbrush or whatever. When MCGA/VGA comes with it's giant 256 colors avalible almost all grafix everywhere become done by simple drawing/comressing, phototextures, scanned textures, 3d renders rotoscopy etc.

>>32138

There are some guys who can buy for you stuff from Amazon just for 35% of the price. Text me on Telegram and I'll share the link. @fuqmylyf

>>32138
Thanks for posting that pixel art guide I really like it

>>32167
>>32176
Also, what pixelart programs you metioned you can recommend?

GrafX2 ix pretty old school, but it works, and is Free as in Freedom. It's meant to feel like old MS-Dos era bitmap editors.
GraphicsGale is another pretty old school one, and I think it has better animation support. It used to be paid, but is now free (gratis).
I've heard Aseprite is good, but it's paid.

Also, now that indie gamedev blew up, there's hundreds of pixel art programs floating around, even web based ones, but I don't think any of them are that good. Doing pixel art with photoshop or krita would be better than that.

In general, though, you can make pixel art in any graphics program that supports an indexed color mode, and has dithering support, but it feels kind of weird to use a giant program to make some pixel art. Krita has some pixel art focused tools.

>>32218
Thank you, I'll check them when will try making something in this category.
Meanwhile, I'am testing some simple animation stuff.

>>32314
Excellent work; I loved the addition of sound effects. What animation program are you using?

>>32315
Thanks. Nothing more than handrawn pictures and Sony movie studio.

>>32138
do you mean something like the wacom bamboo? Don't you have anything like that?

You are OP right?

>>32416
I do have a tablet (a chinese one), I just broke the pen and can't afford to buy a replacement yet. Funny thing, I have a bamboo tablet from wacom as well, its pen also broke, and it's such an old model that a replacement pen costs as much as a new old stock tablet of the same tier.

Whatever, pens are overrated anyway. There has not yet been invented a better drawing tool than MSPaint Xp and a mouse.

Decided to draw my character for the RPG session, even though judging by the rules, dice rolls during character creation are rather unpredictable and might end up in a completely different character than what the player intends.
It was a fun exercise either way.

Just ordered a new pen :-D
It will arrive in ans month :-(

Not my work but thought it was funny

Don’t know the artist

>>32590
Still waiting for my demonic female using my vulnerability in order to strike a relationship. Also: Is the last sketch a pun on the reason why people get together in the first place, or is it the whole sequence trying to bring that across.

Not sure if I want to leave this as a loose sketch, or more fully develop the details and composition. Sometimes it's hard to separate what I should spend time on, and what I just need to get down on paper before moving on. Well, either way I'm done working on it for today.
I also know ancient Egypt didn't have "One true God", but the joke doesn't work without that line.
Inb4 the joke doesn't work even with that line.

As I mentioned in the today thread, I was tasked to "paraphrase" an image for art class.
Originally I wanted to do "Odysseus and the Sirens", but my original concept was too much work for too little gain, so I opted for the "apple painting" as I originally looked it up on google, because I thought it fit the "You are not immune to propaganda" image that has Garfield on it well, which was on my mind the whole day.

Basically I went for the lowest handing fruit in the art world: A vaporwave collage with slightly subtle vibes of Anti-Americanism. The biggest challenge was getting rid of the apple's leaves.
I'm really happy with the second one. The "noise" adds to it.

Now, the problem is that I'm not at all well versed in what means what when it comes to paintings, so I'm a bit scared that while I understand what my edit is trying to convey, others might not find it easy to decipher. Basically as if I knew how to write, but knew not what the words I'm writing meant.

What do you think, guys?

>>34537
Well, I can't say anything about the message / concept, since I don't get the reference, but why not go full batshit crazy on colors? Fucked up , gaudy colors is the primary aesthetic of vaporware / contemporary dystopia after all.
it automatically makes everything cool, mysterious and underground, like the image just came out of the darknet and lost some bits along the way!!111

>>34541
Well, that's because sadly I don't know how to achieve that in GIMP.
And I guess it also has to be comprehensible to a somewhat Christian-conservative artist who's going to grade it.

>>34543
Well, the question is whether you want to really express something, or if you want to play to your audience and just get done with the assignment.
If your teacher is the kind of christian conservative I'm imagining, you can't go wrong with removing all pretense of subtlety and going full ham on current political topics. Something painfully obvious and pandering like putting the figure behind a chain link fence and replacing the apple with a grenade or something (tbh I'm chuckling to myself imagining this). Or the opposite message, depending on his political views.
I think the most enjoyable part of pandering to an audience is making them swallow and approve something deliberately idiotic that you made to make fun of them.

If you want to actually be serious with this, though, I don't think I can help you, it's one thing to give technical advice, and another to put words in someone else's mouth, so to say. Good luck on the assignment, though.

I think I'm going to take Brick's advice from earlier and look into stenciling. It seems similar in aesthetic to slaps (which I like) but without the cost in time and money to get slaps printed.

Will update when I do one (if I don't get bored and go do something else instead).

>>34544
Well, thanks for your help anyway.
It's kind of demoralising that you made it infinitely better with just a few clicks, but to think I haven't attended art class in 2-3 years, I'm happy with the results.

I'm not really sure if I even wanted to truly say anything. I guess I went for the low hanging fruit ironically, because irony is easy. I don't know what I'm on about.

>>34546
You can't find the answer until you first find the question you're trying to answer.
When you're not quite sure what to do, the best approach is to do many low-effort things, until you randomly stumble upon an idea that warrants further work. Thinking that you first have to have an idea in order to create something is a misconception. In fact, you first have to do some work in order to come across an idea.
Just play around and make random throwaway stuff with no commitment, and you will slowly develop a sense of what you can do.

I think that's how all learning and problem solving fundamentally starts: doing random things and seeing the results. In order to have a structured, goal driven approach to learning, one would have to already have knowledge of the topic they're trying to learn, which is paradoxical. And this process of not knowing what to do, doing random things and then "coming across" the solution starts up again with every new piece of art you begin.

>>34546

>I'm not really sure if I even wanted to truly say anything. I guess I went for the low hanging fruit ironically, because irony is easy.

You may have been going for irony, but without changing a thing you can still find deeper layers to dissect. You started with "The Son of Man", but instead of a saviour we find text warning us not to believe Him. Then you replaced the apple, which is a symbol of Man's Fall from Grace, with a pop culture icon. An obvious critique of consumerism, and the toll it takes on our collective humanity. Add in the World Trade Center, obscured by visual noise, and you have a serious message about historical events, and how they're distorted to increase American influence.
Seriously, you wanted a subtle anti-American vibe, and all the pieces are there. So long as you can explain why you made each decision, then no one can tell you that you're wrong. Obviously you shouldn't confuse creating honest art with bullshitting your audience but, in a pinch, BS can go pretty far.

I made an edit of Blade Runner 2049 with Putin and my mug looking at him, but I don't want to post my face on an anonymous imageboards so I'm gonna show only the Putin edit

>>34537
It comes across as rather trite, but you shouldn't feel bad, because the assignment invites trite attempts at irony.

>Now, the problem is that I'm not at all well versed in what means what when it comes to paintings, so I'm a bit scared that while I understand what my edit is trying to convey, others might not find it easy to decipher. Basically as if I knew how to write, but knew not what the words I'm writing meant.

And this is the problem. How do they expect you to meaningfully engage with a painting if you don't know anything about the art of painting? Perhaps they intend to have you all learn about the basics of visual art as a result of analyzing your amateurish attempts at it, which is a perfectly valid pedagogical strategy. But if that's what they're going for, you can't be expected to make anything great.

And if that's not what they're going for, the teacher has no idea what they're doing, and you should just try to have as much fun with this project as possible, per Kazakhstan's suggestion. I suggest shopping in that flying dildo that activists flew into Gary Kasparov's face. It would work really well with the two towers.

Decided to inaugurate my new tablet pen with a portrait of Igor (+ lazy airbrush coloring). No particular reason other than that I had a funny picture of his face-apped face saved in my "portrait practice" folder.
There's only a slight resemblance and I'm almost hesitant to post this because I keep noticing things I could improve, but I have decided to adopt a tactic of doing many simpler studies rather than polishing a turd endlessly, as it seems more conducive to learning. And also because as embarrassing it is to admit, posting stuff on EC gives me a dopamine hit that is an important motivating factor.

>>34854
Tbh I did think that the assignment was pretty dumb and basically has nothing to do with learning art (I'd categorize it as "commentary" or "journalism"), but I didn't want to be rude. Despite my romantic views on Art with a big A, I do think that institutions of learning are better off teaching artistic technique than an artistic voice. Because a voice is something you develop from your own life experiences and contemplation, rather than through academic study.

>>34854
Well, I had no hopes of rising above being trite by any means.
I handed it in yesterday, and it was already graded. (It was awarded the best possible grade.)

Though what you are saying is interesting. Indeed I skipped 2/3 of the classes, and yet we're only just starting to talk about baroque art.
I know my classmates were actually taught how to use perspective and such, but otherwise, we haven't seem to have covered the actual language of paintings and art history besides "look triangle composition".
So I guess it really was just an invitation to make some pseudo-deep trite. Trite. That's the word I was looking for exactly.

This is what happens when half of the class is spent on trying to make a point about morality or showing kids a video that "really makes you think" (=Boomer facebook shit)
I don't hate the guy that teaches our class, but it's pretty clear that he's more concerned with his own views and his own art career.

>>34856
There's learning something and then there's learning ABOUT something. The latter is almost in all cases useless. Example, learning philosophy by reading philosophy, vs learning about philosophy by watching youtube videos about philosophers. Learning art by making art vs learning about art by listening to lectures about art. Learning programming by making programs vs learning about programming by watching tutorials and talks online.
It's an insidious trap because it gives a very realistic feeling that you're actually learning and understanding something, but in reality you're just filling your head with useless trivia that doesn't mean anything to you due to lack of necessary practical experience to contextualize those ideas. You can make comparative models in your head, how this concept relates to that concept, how it can be used, advantages or drawbacks, etc., but without a fundamental understanding of the subject through experience, it's all empty knowledge, since you're putting together sentences without knowing any words, so to say.

A good art class starts like this:
Here's a list of necessary materials, here's how to prepare your canvas and tools. Here's a still life. Sit down, start working. The teacher intervenes from time to time to tell you what you're doing wrong and how to fix it.

>>34855
Portaits. I see you're jumping right back into the hard stuff :D. Good bone structure, if you just soften up the edges to add a few years/pounds you'd nail the likeness.
I know what you mean about finishing, and moving on to the next subject. I had the idea to set an arbitrary, but rigid, schedule, and post results no matter how bad they were. Something like Inktober, with a set goal/finish point. I lacked the confidence to do it, though. I guess you guys were the real winners there, since you dodged a lot of bad drawings :^D.

I really think this style suits my natural tendencies. Just need to figure out a decent way to handle buildings; vectors are too rigid, and hand-drawn lines are too inconsistant. These are drawn with vectors and a perspective guide, which I then traced over freehand. So, sort of splitting the baby down the middle. I've done that a few times now. Just need more practice, I suppose.
I'd also like to do something like this on a large sheet of heavy-weight paper. I don't know why, but large scale drawings have always facinated me. I did try that other "Selfie" one on paper, but had to bail when I messed it up(and finished it as a digital drawing).

>>34913
I've been ashamed of my poor portrait skills for a while, so I've decided to confront the issue head-on (lol) and do nothing but portraits for a while. It will look mediocre and disappointing for a while, and there's always the temptation to slip back into my comfort zone of playing with color, but you gotta systematically attack your weaknesses if you want to get anywhere. Also, there's a bit of a portrait industry in Almaty, which might be a decent source of income. But you have to be able to capture a subject's likeness in a flattering way to get in on that. The latter especially being a problem, since there's too much of a temptation to focus on interesting quirks of the facial anatomy, which gives more interesting results, but might offend the client :-DDDD.

I think cityscapes match really well with the sense of dynamism and motion you like to portray in your drawings. Extreme perspectives on rigid objects let you seamlessly integrate scenery and composition. I've always liked Todd McFarlane's Spiderman stuff, because of how nicely the overhead view frames the figure, with perspective lines guiding you straight to the center of attention.

I used the grid method to sketch this >>34913 onto a sheet of 22"x22" paper. I just did the general outline, and still have to work in the details. We'll see how it goes ¯\(ツ)/¯.

>>34915
So there are potential dollars at the end of this road :DD. Nice.
You know one thing that always struck me when applying for jobs, is the question of why anyone would hire one guy over another. What can any specific candidate offer to stand out? Usually not much. But in art, every portfolio is different. Every artist has a chance to separate himself from the field in a tangible way. Even in portraiture-where the goal is a likeness-there is still a lot of room to incorporate style and individual flair.
When confronted with an interesting facial quirk, I guess you just have to find the line where portraits become caricatures, and then not cross it :D.

>McFarlane

Excellent taste.

Another study.
This time, a painting. Doing several studies of the same material seems like a good way to have more well rounded practice. Pencil line work vs ink vs painting are significantly different approaches with different ways to convey form, and lighting, and doing different studies of the same material might teach you not only how to do those better individually, but how the different approaches relate to each other as well, how differently or similarly they convey the same idea, etc.

Again lost some of the likeness along the way (especially the fat), and the face seems a bit "floaty" (always a problem in painting vs drawing), but again I will resist the temptation to polish a turd, and move on. Also, I'm pretty much mentally exhausted by now, so I'll probably make it even worse.

Colors are also a bit uninteresting, and the whole thing is a bit too "clean", but that's what you get when trying to closely match a reference image.

>>35269
Your level of paiting beyound anything I can dream of. At least in near future

>>35366
Thanks.
But it's not impressive considering how long I've been "into art", yet I'm still at intermediate level due to being a lazy piece of shit :-DDDD. People who are not fuckups like me get a lot better in less time.
It's like that (disputed) Michelangelo quote:
"If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery, it would not seem so wonderful at all."
Except in my case, it would be "If people knew how long it too me to gain my mediocrity..." :-DDD

Another thing is that sometimes I just can't paint or draw. My brain just stops working. Yesterday I tried all evening and didn't get anywhere at all. Hopefully, today I'll be able to produce at least something.

Also, watching good painters work in real time is a good way to learn, I think. Certain ideas and concepts become a lot more obvious when you watch someone do it right before your eyes. It's one thing to "know" something, and another to see it.

>>35370
I like your high standards. It's how you got this far, I suppose, rather than settling for any of the hundred skill levels beneath your current one. It is a damn good portrait, though, but I expect you'll soon finish something even better :D.

>Also, watching good painters work in real time is a good way to learn

Are there any decent names worth checking out? Keep in mind I probably won't get as much technique out of them, but I find watching people create to be great motivation.

Oh, an update on my pencil and paper version of >>34913 :It's really hard redrawing an image line-for-line. My hand keeps trying to create a new picture. Since the original wasn't perfect, I decided to just go where the pencil takes me. I'll either make it better, or destroy it completly :D.

>>35269
I'd say this painting reminds me of Egon Schiele but that's probably just an effect of your subject being Igor.

It's been a while since I made one of these edits. Here is Ernstwurf inserted into a Richie Rich comic.
Am I the only one who likes to keep several projects going at once? I think part of that is due to my lack of focus, and part of it is my being practical. A lot of ideas don't work out and are abandoned, but then I always have another project ready to go. So it keeps me from feeling too bad about the failures.

>>35405

>Here is Ernstwurf inserted into a Richie Rich comic.

Nice! I really admire your drawing skills, it's something that is completely beyond me. I can only edit existing stuff, but painting is like talking chinese: I have no clue how it works. The only difference between those two is that I could probably learn chinese if I tried very hard, but I don't think I could ever learn how to paint.

>Am I the only one who likes to keep several projects going at once?

Me too, and I think that's a good thing, because if you hit a wall on one project, you can just switch to another and pick it up later, or just abandon it if you feel it's not worth it.

>>35410

>Nice

Thanks, I'm glad you like it.

>I don't think I could ever learn how to paint.

I know it's a cliché, but making art really is 5% talent, and 95% practice. (The cliché is actually 1% talent, but we all know those people who were always good. You know, like when you were in the 3rd grade and one kid was somehow drawing at the 6th grade level :D). When you're editting things, you probably make a lot of small adjustments, moving pieces around, right? Drawing is similar, where the first lines are replaced with slightly better lines, until eventually something good emerges. In that regard, my greatest strength is probably just being stubborn; that really comes in handy when drawing Ernstwurf wrong for the 10th time, before finally getting it right on attempt 11. If there's a subject or a character that you like, try sketching it over and over. If you enjoy it, and stick with it without worrying about the results, you'll eventually get better.
The OP also has a decent selection of drawing books, including How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way. That was one of my earliest books, back when I was making stick figures and tracing Garfield. It's a really good one, even though I eventually ended up drawing simpler comic strip style art.

>Me too

So I'm not the only one :D. A big advantage of digital work really is this ability to keep so many things going at once. Imagine trying to juggle a pile of physical canvases or drawing boards. You'd almost need a whole studio.

>>35410
>>35413

>having several projects going

That's a good idea. Being too single minded actually bit me in the ass during the last two days, where I was like "portraits and portraits only". But I wasn't really feeling it, so I kept banging my head against a wall for two days straight with no results.
Should have moved on after an hour or two of trying and worked on a couple different things.

I should keep a list of ongoing projects, and work on one if another one isn't panning out. I'll keep it small for now and start with 3.

I'm not finished with this, but I'll post it anyway.
I like how the legs and arms are turning out, but the midtones on the body are completely fucked.
There's some fuckery going on in the original with strong direct light, and a lot of reflex light in the shadow. I got confused halfway through and messed it up completely. Also, guess it shows the ares of anatomy that I'm bad at: the torso.

I'm going to have to review my understanding of value, especially midtones, and brush up on anatomy, and hopefully complete this. I'm completely mentally exhausted and by the end of the session I got mind fog and started fucking it up even further.

I still want to paint more, but I'm not sure if I can do it without some rest.

>>35474
original for reference.

I wish I had a mentor to tell me how to fix my shit. It's a bit sad to be completely lost and not have anyone to ask what I'm doing wrong.

>>35413
Wew. Such a cutie.

>>35474
>>35475
Within the torso midtones, try blending in some highlights to reveal the shape of her ribcage as it curves toward her back. You can see several ribs on your reference, making a kind of "M" shape next to her left breast. That's only what to do, though. I don't really know how, other than trial and error.

Regarding mental fatigue. I was bummed out about having a limited amount of mental focus and energy per day, and having to stop studying even if I still had the motivation, but I thought about it a bit, and found a positive side to it as well. Being mentally exhausted means that I am using my brain to its full capacity, thus learning and improving. I remember that when I went to art school and got introduced to oil paint for the first time, I was in a similar state of exhaustion every session, to the point where I'd ruin my paintings smearing paint like an idiot in my confusion. And those were the most fruitful times of my learning. Another thing is that I can still perform tasks that I have learned well enough to not put much thought into them. Thus, if I reach a sufficient level of mastery, I could conceivably draw/paint for the whole day non-stop, which is a level of productivity I've always dreamed of achieving. And it's good that my stuff isn't turning out well. If I were to only do things that were easy for me, I would be stagnating instead of improving.

>>35485
I have no idea either, but I have some leads.
First, a better understanding of midtones might help. The areas between shadow and light where all of the subtle stuff happens. Well controlled midtones are the key to believably conveying realistic lighting.
Another thing is that setting aside the painting and drawing/constructing the figure instead might give me a better understanding of what is happening to the form, which would then better inform my painting decisions.
And lastly, my teacher used to say that one should take the opportunity to embellish reality. "But it looked like that in real life" is a poor excuse for a bad painting. What I mean is that the figure's torso is quite uninteresting looking on this photo, with soft lighting that hides the contours of the body, and no anatomical details to latch on to (one of the reasons I don't like painting women: too pudgy, lol). So one solution might be to invent something that wasn't there, in service of producing a better work.

It's not that I am trying to represent the figure exactly, but rather to construct a puzzle of appealing brushstrokes, colors and shapes in the image of the figure. I guess an analogy I could make to the problem I'm facing is, if you were tasked with making a stained glass mosaic, and along with little pieces of glass, got handed a huge, whole piece of glass (let's assume you're not allowed to break it) that you had to fit into the mosaic without making it look boring. How do we solve this problem? Find out in the next episode!

>>35489
Have a look at the introduction chapter of a book called "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain", it talks about mental fatigue and mental states to paint in.

I think I've mentioned this book before, like years ago on old EC

In the old drawing thread, someone suggested a banner based on the album cover of Tanz der Lemminge >>24515. Creating a good 3x1 layout was more difficult than anticipated, but I finally came up with this.

I'm starting to study fundamentals of art seriously now. Closing up all the gapes in my education.
What I've discovered is that basically I'm a fraud. I have learned a few cheap, flashy tricks, and have rooted myself deeply into a comfort zone of a particular method and style, but the moment I attempt something outside of it, I become completely inept.

I am starting from the beginning, not skipping any steps this time. Which means I won't be making much personal work, mostly just boring studies of naked people and stuff. I don't think anyone would be interested in seeing that, but if you still want to, let me know. Otherwise it might take a while for me to post anything.

>>35510
I'm gonna throughly review my art fundamentals library soon, so thanks for reminding me of that book. I'll put it in my to-read list.

>>35818
Good luck on your journey through the fundamentals. Mastering the craft is what elevates the pros, right?

>I won't be making much personal work, mostly just boring studies of naked people and stuff. I don't think anyone would be interested in seeing that

If you're working on a study and something finally clicks, then I'm probably not alone in saying I'd be interested in seeing it. If you figure out how to solve a stumbling block, for instance, or make progress in a technique. Anything related to the art process like that is always interesting, even if the underlying subject isn't.

>>35689
I wanted to critize this but then I realized that you did everything right but the source resolution is just crappy. Any chance to find a better original picture?

I've decided to try making some banners yet again, this time using that school project I posted earlier ITT.
What do you guys think? Which version turned out best?

>>35842

>Any chance to find a better original picture?

Of course, and I'm really glad you pointed this out. I actually found these 2 pictures last week, and they both seem a little clearer. I'll do some more searching, and use the best picture I can get my hands on. The hard part was figuring out what I wanted to to edit, but repeating the process shouldn't take too much time. Incidently, adding the word "vinyl" to my search brought up some really nice images.
You know what's funny? I worked to add a bit of pixelation/texture to the font, but on a sharper image I can see that the original is just a smooth neon green :DDD.

>>35843
I like the first one, but why did you remove the background and sky? I think the image loses a lot of visual impact without it.

>>35844
I had no idea how to implement both towers, but I guess it's fine if it only has one of them in the background.
(Otherwise it conflicts with the text, which is really low quality and has weird borders.)
I guess 5th time's the charm!

>>35845
you can make text stand out even on an elaborate background by giving it an outline.
or even make the text the opposite lightness to the background, like white for example.

>>35846
I know that, but here the text itself is a layer from an image, and not something I typed in.

>>35849
I spent some time looking at similar font.
Didn't find the exact one, but it does look kind of like vertically squished Tahoma. It could work as a decent substitute, even if the G isn't exactly the same.
The text itself is obviously vertically squished, since the horizontal strokes are thinner than vertical ones, so maybe it is Tahoma, and the G looks different due to compression, blurriness and some quirks of font rendering.

>>35845
Yeah, that's much nicer imo.

>>35853
That looks like a good substitute. I think if you want the original, you have to use Art Alive. The controls are a bit frustrating, and when finished I still had to screencap the image, import that into my art program, and then erase the white background.

https://www.playemulator.com/sega-online/art-alive/

https://www.reddit.com/r/identifythisfont/comments/azoxr8/the_font_used_in_you_are_not_immune_to_propaganda

I've been playing with Art Alive this morning; it's pretty cool once you get used to the controls. Here's a brief tutorial I made by fumbling with the keyboard(I know you can select the 'controller' icon and it says what each button does, but I never read instructions :^DD):

Arrow Keys to move within the Menu to select a Tool
X Key to select a Tool(you can select a color from the 1st group prior to choosing a Tool)
Enter Key to move to your canvas
Arrow Keys to position your selected Tool
Z Key to toggle the Tool on and off
Arrow Keys to create/draw with the Tool
Enter Key to return to the menu
For creating text, choose the Text Tool
Use the Arrow Keys to position each letter
X Key to scroll through letters
Z Key to select a letter

I wanted to study some anatomy, but it was too boring so I painted some goats instead.
their horns are a bit fucked and I couldn't figure out the shape of their head from the reference photo.
But it was fun. My problem is that I find painting alla prima fun, but construction drawing is just daunting. I'll have to find a way to force myself.

>>35919
Absoluetly awesome! For a second I thought that on preview is actual photo!

Speaking about goats, I for like 2 or more weeks has no time properly finish this. I want try to "paint" it like pros like you doing it, but I'm sceptical I get decent results. I still has no idea how to get in paiting even, probaby my brain just don't work in this direction.

>>35921
painting everything in one layer can be tricky, and I probably only do it because I learned to do so in school.

You could go for a modular workflow that concept artists do. Like make linework first, then light/shadows, then ambient occlusion, then color layer.

It lets you think of one problem at a time, instead of doing everything at once. Tbh I've been planning on trying that kind of workflow myself, because with painting, when you fuck up, you have to re-do large chunks of the image. With a modular workflow, you can do one step, then the next one, and if you fuck up, you can just scrap the whole layer and start again without ruining the whole image.

>>35919

>Why is he posting a photo of goats? Oh wait

>>35919
Why don't you do something with art or graphic design instead of letting people like your idiot brother or alcoholic father drag you down?

>>35929
This guy could just prostitute himself as a graphic designer until he can make a living as a full time artist tbh.
He should move to another country if you ask me.

>>35929
>>35936
Thanks, but I don't think I'm there yet to work professionally. I still have the hobbyist mentality regarding work ethic, discipline and the like.
None of my work is "sellable", in that it's too specific of a style/aesthetic, and I generally only paint stuff I'm interested in, rather than having a general skill set to paint something for a client. I'm currently trying to work on that stuff, generalize my workflow, develop discipline, etc.

Delivering a product is a different skill from making something "good" in the abstract sense.

>>35940
I can just say that in your field of profession, sky is the limit for you.

>>35940
You shouldn't listen to all the bullshitters in this thread. Find work in any field but the thing you love, or you might just lose the most important form of mental balance.

I'm a computer scientist and I actually enjoy programming (it's rarer than you think).
When I started working as a programmer full time I did not enojy my work in the slightest but at the same time had no mental energy left to find joy in programming in my free time either. Things that got me motivated ended up dragging me down (like the prospect of solving actually interesting problems).
What makes me so certain in my assumption is that I could predict how to get out of this and it worked as expected (just like a scientific experiment). I now only work for just enough hours a week to "cover my expenses", leaving me with more free time than work and guess what... it took less than two weeks for my depression to end and the motivation and joy to return.

Now as I understand it: Artists work more than most people in this working culture and they have very little chance to dictate their working condition (unlike programmers, who are in a position to make demands right now). If you start working as an artist you will end up not creating art anymore, it's almost a given.

See also points 3. and 5. of this essay: http://ranprieur.com/essays/dropout.html

And note that I just found this recently, long after having come to the same conclusion; so I'm not just repeating what someone said on the internet to justify my real-life decision.

>>35922
I know about separate layer things, and actually using them. But or problems on technical level when I can't make program work as I want, or problems on level where it's hard to implement my knowleges on practice. Well, I'll try to finish this, thanks!

>>35957
I don't think I have another really marketable skill to make income with (except for other hobbies that would also take years to get to a professional level with).
I don't mind being a freelance illustrator and taking only enough commissions for sustainable living. I would hate to be a "concept artist" or some other kind of full time worker at a studio. The entire media production machine for video games and movies is a horrible soul sucking nightmare. I remember back in 2010 or so everyone dreamed of being a concept artist for blizzard or some shit. They thought they'd get tens of thousands of dollars for painting cool orcs. intead the job basically entails monkey work where you have to supply blueprints for 3D modelers, with explicit instructions to make it look as generic and familiar as possible. Also, the job involves more photo manipulation than painting.

painting is the only skill I have, and the only thing doing which doesn't make me want to kill myself, so I guess that's my only option basically.

>>35960
Well, in todays economy there is always the option to be a professional bullshitter.
In slightly richer countries it's quite feasable to do something mundane half the week, eg. 20hours/week as construction worker or gardener and then live off of that while using the free time to indulge in your personal skills.

But honestly, I have no idea about the situation in Kz. All I have to offer is ideas that seemed out-of-the-box to me when I was introduced to them.

Another brainless observational painting.
I really, really enjoy doing this, tbh. I wonder if there's a way to derive as much enjoyment from construction drawings and studies.

>>36013
the program I did this in records brush strokes, and you can save them as a video, so here's a timelapse thing.

>>36030
I loved seeing that, thank you. What program is that? Because if it's not Krita I might have to write a patch for them to be able to do this as well.

Started to try paint without lineart and from head and kind of fast - so it's kind of attempts at study paitns/fast sketches of simple objects
Don't watch picture under spoiler, I painted horse cock sorry

>>36038
:DDD You don't have to be sorry

>>36036
It's a proprietary program called SpeedyPainter, it has the most basic functionality for painting.
It basically stores every brush stroke and all of the undo history on disk as you're painting, and in the project file itself, so you can pull up an old file with all of its undo history intact. Then you can render it into a video.
I'm not sure how easy it would be to that in Krita, since it has user configurable undo history and memory/space management, as well as being a much more complicated.

Also, there are many much more important things in Krita that need patching first :-DDD.

>>36038
I think it would help you a lot to do a value study. Difference between brightness and darkness of shapes and how they transition into each other is 99% of what allows us to see the shape and form of an object. It's not about how it "really" is, but about being able to "read" the shapes and tell them apart from each other, kind of like text on a background. The same way you can't read dark grey text on a black background, you can't "read" which part of the object is light or dark if there's not enough contrast between them.
Instead of blurring the shapes together, try to imagine the object as a low-poly model, where each polygon corresponds to a certain grey tone, and sort of construct the form out of those planes. And the highlights are also much brighter and sharper on real rubber/plastic.
The idea is that even on a dark object, the value range is supposed to be pretty high. Like the darkest shade might be 5%, but the brightest one will still be above 50%, whereas on yours, the brightest point is only 30%, which is very low contrast.
It's not about what value the object is "ideally", but the relationships between the values covering the whole spectrum that create the illusion of form and darkness.

Also, painting on a bright white background is inadvisable, it'll make it difficult to see the real values. It helps to squint and see if you can tell apart any of the shapes inside the figure, because staring at an object will make your eyes adjust to the contrast (kinda like when you enter a dark room), making it appear to have more contrast than it actually does. I do all of my painting while squinting tbh.

>>36058
also, black objects can be difficult to paint as a beginner, I recommend you find well lit pictures of white horse cocks, with well defined areas of light and shadow, so you can study the form rather than just copying the pixels.

Treat it like a marble or gypsum statue that you're drawing at an art academy.

>>36041
Ha ha. With my current skill probably I should pain shaded spurods X---DDDD

>>36058
I'm actually trying to learn shapes, yes. Break objects at prts and make as less shapes as possible, same as using smooth color less and paint everything with standart brush, but as you can seen I kind of failing at yet. Same as I absoluetly not picked any colors first when started to paint, which is big mistake and just made starting "blob" with 100% black which is also was lame. Thank you for example and corrections! I feel like one day I actually start "feel" form of object. Maybe I should try to paint looking at real objects or photos first.

>>36059
I hope horse cocks is not something I'll pain whole my career lol. However I have plenty of pictures of them if I want draw it from object, thank you XD
I'll try to draw something more creative for next scetches tho.

>>36030

>here's a timelapse thing.

That was really cool to see, thanks.

A drawing I did today, along with the reference. I'm afraid I didn't quite capture the slight 'leaning' posture. Subtle poses are much more difficult than figures performing extreme motions.

>>36118

>poses

That's the kind of thing gesture drawing is used for.
Capturing only the rhythms and motions of the body, without considering anatomy or details. Then when you have an effective pose, you draw the anatomy on top. It's great for studying and highlighting the expression of the body, rather than its form.

The technique is extremely important for animators and cartoonists, due to the need to make expressive and dynamic drawings of people.
There's a lot of resources and tutorials on what it entails and how to do it.

>>36119
Thanks. You can tell I jumped right into sketching the outlines, can't you? It's no wonder the drawing lacks energy; I ended up trying to copy the model, instead of using her as a reference to build something more interesting.

Together with the help of another Ernst from /b/ I was able to create this template which is intended for autistic brilliance and the moments your or sb. else's autism shines.
Since I don't have a program to directly place the autistic brilliance on the transparent background I had to work around it it to give an idea.

>>36168
Nice work, Ernsts.

I need to stop being so uptight about the quality of my stuff and just learn to draw/paint for the sake of it.
Funnily enough, the drawings I'm most fond of were done for the fuck of it, without any particular level of quality in mind.
Maybe I should separate my serious study time from the "draw for fun" time, because there's nothing more paralyzing or disappointing than when I start a fun drawing, but get obsessed with technical quality and shelf it until I'm "good enough", which is such a nebulous and shifting goal that such a time might not even come at all.

>>36182

>Maybe I should separate my serious study time from the "draw for fun" time,

You have the right idea here, imo. If you were studying literature, you would still read books that weren't "assigned", right? This is the same thing. Just because you're studying art, doesn't mean every piece has to be "graded".
Personally, I draw above my technical skill to improve, and below it for fun.

Another version of this model >>36118. This time I did some preliminary sketching to work out the pose, and then ultimately ended up using a much looser cartoon style to flesh it out. Still not perfect, but I'm happier with it.

>>36226
You realise that you made her hips abnormaly wide, right? Is your last name Crumb?

>>36321
Drawing wide hips is one of my oldest, and strongest, drawing tendecies. I always figured it helped create identifiable female figures, since I also tend to draw small breasts. Now that I think about it, that's a bit odd because I could just as easily draw large breasts and small hips, but I don't. Hm. I wonder how these stylistic traits got started. Anyway, I can usually overcome them and create proper anatomy when using a realistic style, but when I draw cartoons those hips are always going to be huge :D.

Did exercises all morning.
These are actually very nice and therapeutic.

It's strange how I can understand perspective on an intuitive level, but have points of confusion on a theoretical level. For example, how the vanishing point changes for a cube rotating on a sagittal axis.

Muscle memory still sucks, especially with cylinders. A lot of the ellipses on those cylinders are not correct, they have pinched corners. A true ellipse is round all over. But freehanding an ellipse is pretty difficult, especially while drawing from the wrist. My tablet is too small to draw from the shoulder.

fuck yeah bitch I'm on fire

>>36372
For me it's often opposite. I may know theory well, but have problems with understanding at all. Like I not "feel" some things and can't "view" them. Or even can, but can't implement. I think I'd benefited to have real life teacher guiding me, but paiting for more more personal hobby and I don't want to turn it into professional learning or something like that yet.

>>36377
Drawing complicated poses in perspective is always satisfying.. when you understand it X--DDD

Anyway here some may crap where I tried be minimal layers and almost no lineart, mostly paiting. It's still crap but I hope I'll understand concept better overtime. Don't look under spoiler, it's mine... usual stuff.

>>36357

>I could just as easily draw large breasts and small hips, but I don't.

Maybe it would make the character look instable. Like she's about to fall over because her center of mass is so high up.

>Hm. I wonder how these stylistic traits got started.

The best answer I can give is Jungian in nature: it's the expression you give the anima.
However, for all intents and purposes, that's just saying that you like drawing women with large hips, but in slightly different words. Which leads back to the original question...

>>36381
On other hand, this elf-hobbit thing I painted last was no effort and looked terribe so made version without him.

>>36383

>The best answer I can give is Jungian in nature

So my drawing is potentially shaped by unconscious archetypes. I like this answer, even if it ends in another mystery.

>>36381
>>36385

>this elf-hobbit thing I painted

His expression was kind of funny. He looked so shocked :D.

An observational painting and some drawing studies. All of skulls.

I'm actually learning a lot, with these. Less conceptual learning, and more skill.
I didn't really think about it when picking it, but the reference photo for the painting is exactly the kind of thing bright, low contrast stuff I struggle with. Only realized while doing it. But it turned out well. Apparently 90% of what makes it look convincing is the edges between the light and dark parts. It doesn't even strictly matter if there's tone variation in the bright parts, as long as the transition into the dark parts is done well, it looks convincing.
I'm worried that I'm not doing enough interpretation and conveying the colors too literally, but heck, that's what practice's for. Trying to reinterpret the reference invites the risk of either falling back onto your comfort zone, or taking on too much challenge and getting tired and confused. I've become aware of the fact that mental energy is a resource that needs to be managed.

The drawings, same problem of being too literal. Same conclusion, too. As long as I'm learning a skill through observation (working with lines), interpretation can wait. I'm basically not even comfortable or skilled enough to start reinterpreting meaningfully and with purpose.

(also, I did figure out how to crop the video, but the quality difference between webm and mp4 was imperceptible despite file size, probably because the painting program itself did some compression. I'd export in higher quality, but that'd take 30 minutes, and I need to move on. I'll know better from now on, though)

>>36398
Nice work, and thanks for sharing the video. I see what you mean about the trasitions between light and dark. That's where you gave the eye a shape to grab onto and identify. After that is established, your tone variances don't break that illusion.

>>36398
Is it only my inner Otto Weininger or is the female skull actually smaller?

>>36408
It's a fact that females have smaller brain than males on average. Smaller brain — smaller cranium.

>>36413
Source? I've heard it before and I've also heard that it's bullshit before. In either it's not a fact just because people begin the sentence with "It's a fact..."

>>36414
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228549134_Gender_Differences_in_Human_Brain_A_Review
The difference isn't really significant, though. There is also no evidence that bigger brain implies higher intelligence.

>>36408
None of those are to scale, actually. Well, maybe general eyeballing.
Female skulls tend to be smaller simply because females are shorter and have smaller bodies overall. Not sure how that would hold for a male and female of equal height and weight, though. Because I've seen short guys, and their heads are so small it's surreal. There was also a russian guy at the print shop who was over two meters tall, and his head was the size of an average woman's ribcage.

The more interesting things I've learned is the proportions within the skull. It seems that men tend to have more angular eye sockets with a stronger tilt, vs women who have round ones. The "cheek" area, the part of the maxilla that's under the eye sockets, is thinner in women. The jaw structure is an obvious one, but there seems to be a great deal of variation there. Women have smaller chins as well

Although, this is all from a sample size of five or six skulls, I'm sure there's more subtle things I'm missing, or that I'm making premature conclusions on some features, due to small sample size.

I tried to construct an unorthodox lighting scheme and "solve" the lighting problems.
I didn't solve the problem, namely bounce light and expressing the form. I'll need to construct some kind of exercise to practice the parts that I can't solve.

painted in gimp (before it was cool)

some from the .xcf's

back then being a linux user was sure fun

>>36457

Somebody thinks it would be fitting to mount some Ernstwurf on their hedas? I was just thinking about how this place shares something with lan party. Few people and old fashioned in a weird sense, when you compare it to other boards.

I hate to draw and I wanna die but I made a sketch of my friend because I wanted to gift her something on Orthodox Christmas.

>>36507
That's quite cute. Both the picture and the idea.

>>36386

>His expression was kind of funny. He looked so shocked :D.

Actually, it gived me an idea
Wierd one - I find "anime".. or incorrect word, don't know how call them, classic elves? cute. You know, imagine someone like Link from old Zeldas. But what if merge them with orc-like? Imagine elves like from zelda, but more tribal and barbaric or something like that. Or something in mood one of Anvil of Dawn characters https://www.mobygames.com/images/shots/l/586091-anvil-of-dawn-dos-screenshot-choose-from-5-champions-of-different.png
So I painted my idea, also same time tried to work with gradient sky and other stuff trying to improve myself.

>>36507
Why you hate to draw? You doing actually nice, hope she will like it.

>>36513

>what if merge them with orc-like

Japs are one step ahead of you and are already making porn about it.
https://e-hentai.org/g/1539645/0c78e48ada/

>>36514
This is not I have in mind, this is more ULTRA BIG TITS THICC HENTAI stuff. I think about things like that

>>36515
So kinda like Bosmer from TES or Dalish Elves from Dragon Age, but simply greener and teethier? It just seems to me that there are no original archetypes left and everything has been done already by someone at some point. I also thought about how to make elves not as lame and boring as they are usually portrayed. Make them either evil or uncaring and/or probably incomprehensible? That's fae from Celtic legends. Make them technologically inclined or cybernetic? This is possible in Shadowrun, AFAIK.

>>36516

>Bosmer from TES

In lore I care they was ugly little wierd cannibals, with crazy culture and traditions, living in province with sane apes and walking ginat trees.

What I have in mind probably some children-teenager aimed "fairy" fantasy which instead of typical elfboy stuff will be around nomad-barbaric life. It's just random thoughts, nothing more.

>I also thought about how to make elves not as lame and boring as they are usually portrayed.

Well, morrowind/redguard-era TES lore bosmers, altmers, direnni, dunmer, dwemer etc. was original take more or leass, as much you can get with still recognisable concept. Gelfings from original Dark Crystall (not watched new TV series and don't want to) may count also.
Or Might and Magic, including guardians vori elves which is bilogical robots.

>>36457

>pic 1

I like this one, it looks like you were making an album cover.

>>36502
I was going to change the computer screens to show Ernstchan, but couldn't get it to look right.

>>36507
Personal gifts=Best gifts. Merry Christmas, ernst.

>>36513

>So I painted my idea, also same time tried to work with gradient sky and other stuff trying to improve myself.

Your work on the gradients is paying off. You created some really nice lighting effects throughout the scene, and I love those footprints in the snow. The spot where the snow meets his ankles is a bit off. I think it looks a little too smooth. Maybe break up the surface, making the snow more uneven, to show how his feet have broken through and sunk in.

Found this thing (or at least a digital copy of it) I painted in art class.
Probably the only piece of visual art I did that I'm actually proud of.

>>36519
Thanks! I secretly counted on you.

>I was going to change the computer screens to show Ernstchan, but couldn't get it to look right.

I was thinking about that as well, now that you had the same idea and it didn't work out maybe you could exchange that thing in the middle on the wall with the EC leaf. But I'm not sure about that. Maybe some other ideas? I really like this picture so far as I think it represents EC and its style.

>>36520
Cool, looks like a chameleon blending into a painted background. What was your process here? It looks like you were painting over a photograph, but put down a white primer layer first?

>>36556
You're welcome, ernst.
I'll see if I can add some details to make it even more EC style.

Another skull study, this time values.
Sorry if you're getting tired of them, but I have 4 more skulls to do before I can move on to the next assignment :-DDD.