Homepage
 • Blog
• Blog Archive
My Comics
• Morrowind Comic
• Trivium Entertainment
Other Comics
• Hustle
Art Galleries
• Skaarj on a Stick
• Gimpy Stick
Art Tutorials
• ArtWiki
• Inking
• Figure Drawing
Other
• Skaarj.com Forums
Links
• Booster Logic
• Maglot
• ehunno
|
March 29th, 2008 |
|
The chicken I made up a while back. Drawn on the computer. |
|
| Comments |
|
| Name |
Time |
| Stickman |
March 29th, 2008 |
|
I don't know how coherent this will be. I'm rather tired, but I wanted to comment on stuff on Gimpystick. I haven't doen it in a while.
Your chickens are frightening. Probably because they're without pupils. You've also turned the beak into a part of his skull, which turns him from a chicken into a kind of turtle or reptile. Except that reptiles don't have "hair" so ... yeah, it just doesn't resolve. It's scary. The thick lines on the face that fade into white also make it look like deep shadows, which is also scary.
Your linework looks a bit sketchy. But there's enough of it that it starts looking good, like value instead of line. Your form's also pretty good. Because of the value and overlapping lines that slot into other sections it looks properly like occlusion, one object in front of another. So that gives the picture a little depth and separates the form.
And the fact you have value on the face and neck but not the eyes make the eyes seem like they're glowing.
I think the one thing that would make this picture better was texture. Right now you've got this "hairy" kind of texture going on throughout the whole thing. If you could get the beak and eyes and dangling thing chickens have below the chin all looking like they were separate textures, it would look even better.
I have an example, but it's a very finished piece and doesn't really apply to what you're doing here.
[url]
If you look at the raptors, her skin, her hair, her shirt, the trees, and the eyes, they all look like different textures. Various things play into this: The intensity of the line (curved or jagged) like the skin on the raptors and the pillars (similar, but different) versus the more gentle transitions of light and dark you see on Laura's skin. The undulating value patterns changing the surface of the shirt bunching up don't happen on the skin.
Also, the wide highlight on the raptor's eyes make them look wet, while the closest thing to that is the their teeth which look a little wet, but not so wet. That's all in the way light plays off them -- how value is used.
Anyway, for yours, everything is done with the same type of stroke, so it all looks hairy. I think I have an old assignment I uploaded... There it is. [url] Take a look at those circles and how different they look. I only started exploring the way lines can be used to represent different textures or surfaces. Feel free to explore yourself. Sketch out the chicken and then fill up most of the page with lines, trying to get them looking like different things you want.
I wonder if I uploaded another... I can't find it, so I probably didn't upload it. It was a fur test where a leg ended in a hoof. I did a bunch of lines of fur just trying to get something to look right. It's good to do that so you can get your drawing to look like you want. There's a lot of times I see someone's picture and I see another little skeleton figure up in the corner as the person was trying to work out how the pose held together.
An artist is a problem solver. Whatever you can do to solve the problem of creating a believable representation should be pursued.
And I'm pretty sure I'm just rambling aimlessly at this point. It's good stuff, but unstructured it's a little harder to get the goods out of. If you have any questions, let me know. I'm glad to see you still updating when you can. Thanks Faileas! |
| reply to this comment |
|
|
| New Comment |
|
|
|
