Drawing / Sketching / Digital Painting

And here's my "shadow" for Inktober52, week 2:

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/MetmDVo.jpg)

And here's mine:

IMAGE(https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1wUtdmKK16o/XhuTG8M_C3I/AAAAAAAABY8/TFgUtAR3b7kjjFSeJBhad9ZmBBKMDmvyACLcBGAsYHQ/s640/02%2BShadow.png)

The bulk of my sickness has passed. IT BEGINS.

I'm going to be basing these on the ongoing campaign I'm playing and my current D&D character, the very angry dark elf sorceress/cleric of Umberlee, Megda Nightsquall.

Week 1 : "flying"

IMAGE(https://smackfolio.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/1.flying.jpg)

aaand week 2 "Shadow". All caught up now.

IMAGE(https://smackfolio.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/2.-shadow.jpg)

Today hasn't particularly earned me any money but it feels GOOD to be drawing again regardless!
And the practice never hurts!

Very nice, Ravanon and pyxistyx! I really like all three of your drawings .

The Weekly Drawing Prompt seems to have died a quick and sudden death, but my questionable artiste skills and I enjoyed it immensely and it seems like maybe its a best fit here (also posted it to the "post me a picture of something you created" thread before I realized I meant to put it here, but it also fits there... so I guess I'll spread the love this week).

Anyway, here is my VERY late submission for the last Weekly Prompt - "Submersible Refeshments":

IMAGE(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/CnMYuHSssB_MSxobzSeQaF0Z_KGCpuK8andbFGDP0yCWXkpln0VaitF2ac0CKe4kR5TEy859AlXujNB8W8UCrRJ-o-leLF2FNiD0xqWpdVHjyd02M_QMUbJW1rR9u3Bu9qaHfJnxJA=w800-h600-no)

Nice to see your work again, vypre!

The weekly thread hit at a bad time for me in regards to what spare time i had for drawing unfortunately. FORTUNATELY, there's now inktober 52 to allow me to pick up the slack!

In fact. might as well hijack that thread for the purposes of that....

I'm joining you there for this Inktober 52 series .

haaasshhhhtaaaag "toonme". or something.

IMAGE(https://smackfolio.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/selfie-toon.jpg)

Just doodling a little tonight...

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/Lx5sJUA.jpg)

I know I should be drawing snakes, but I really wanted to do this "Cartoon Me" thing, even if I'm a little late to the party:

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/JRwIKuc.jpg)

nice!

I'm currently making my way through the 250 Box Challenge from DrawABox.com, and i'm actually kind of enjoying it. My "learning to draw" experience has been fairly stop-start so far, but getting back into it recently and just trying to focus on an hour a day of sketching has been fairly nice, and doing the boxes has allowed me to work on some basic skills while avoiding the frustration I found came much more quickly with more advanced drawing from life and stuff. I'm still going to go back to it, of course, it's largely just a matter of getting my head in the right place to not allow the gap between my ability and ambition to be crippling.

the next inktober52 prompt is "snake". figured i'd post my progress as i go...

Sketchin'
Again, this is based on my D&D character in a nautical themed campaign, so some sort of sea serpent seemed appropriate

IMAGE(https://smackfolio.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/snake-wip-1.jpg)

Rough Colourin'
I'm trying to focus more on light and shadows as it's a MAJOR weakness of mine and something i need to practice more. So i'm working on the idea that the biggest light source is the ball of lightning in Megda's hand and trying to work from there. Also didn't like the beastie's face or fins, so did a bit of remodelling.

IMAGE(https://smackfolio.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/snake-wip-2.jpg)

I found this a really interesting discussion. It is funny in that I use a lot of the techniques through my own discovery.

Another "challenge", for those of us who need external motivation to do anything: Figuary!

The LoveLifeDrawing channel on YouTube and Croquis Cafe team up for figure drawing practice every day of February: 1 instruction video from LoveLifeDrawing, and the video with poses from Croquis Cafe (on Vimeo, probably need to register for an account since their videos feature nudity, because life drawing).

As I did last year, I will do my best to do it everyday, using Procreate on my iPad. Here are today's drawing:
IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/I6FWRx2.jpg)
IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/1eBvJKE.jpg)
IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/kpBZdQl.jpg)

Funnily enough, I ran out of time with the 5 minute drawing, as my cats were doing something very cute on the other side of the couch.

oh i'd forgotten that was a thing! too many drawing challenges, too little time

Cross post from the random things you love thread. Here are some of the reference I'd use for the flying fish that swims in the sand:
Stingray because they vibrate their "wings" to bury themselves in sand
IMAGE(https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/0b/6e/fd/3f/a-stingray-trying-to.jpg)
Searobin another fish that buries in the sand and has fins all along the sides:
IMAGE(https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/bandtail-searobin-picture-id805575474?s=612x612)
Cobra for expanding hood:
IMAGE(https://animals.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Cobra-4-650x425.jpg)
Humming bird for flight, snout and vibration locomotion:
IMAGE(https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/assets/photo/66120991-480px.jpg)
Heh, for some reason I am compelled to make this creature now...

A drawing I made for my wife for our 9th wedding anniversary, which was yesterday:
IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/kwAmZ2x.jpg)

That's awesome, I bet she loved it

Thank you! She did .

Hey! Question for y'all

So for the last few months, I've been working with traditional art, but recent events mean that I can't stock up on supplies the way I used to (the store in town is obviously closed) and to be perfectly frank, I'm reticent to be ordering much of anything off of Amazon right now.

Anyway, I'd been thinking about getting a tablet for a while, but I didn't know if it'd be at all valuable for me, as a beginner. But since I'm stuck inside the goddamn house until god-knows-when, and I'm incredibly lucky enough to be in a financial position to get one, I'm wondering if I should just pull the trigger on one, or should me and my Micron pens keep at it for a while longer?

I would say that, if you're curious and can afford one, there is no reason not to. I do most of my drawing traditionally because my house is too small and my Cintiq is too huge, and having to move it around is quite inconvenient. Also, I tend to move the paper a lot when I'm drawing: I flip it upside down, move it left, right, etc, and I find that hard to do with the bulky Cintiq. My wife, however, has a Surface, and moving it around seems much easier given its dimensions, so I can see myself enjoying a tablet like that. Plus, I see tons of artists on Twitter loving their tablets and programs like Procreate, so I think you would probably like it too. That said, I think you're going to be learning whether you get one or stick to pen and paper. Heck, do both if you can!

I can't answer you wether you should get one, but some advice in case you start looking for one.

For hooking up to a computer, in my opinion, wacom is still the best. They make solid products that lasts for years. Go with a size that fits your table, but don't get the smallest one. It's too cramped to be comfortable to work on.

If you are looking for a screen you can draw on, I would push you toward a iPad instead. This or the previous generation has the apple pencil and they are just incredibly good. Get Procreate on it and you will have everything you need to create digital art. Wacom just released their One which is their answer to iPad, but I have not tested it yet, so can't give you my opinion on it.

Don't expect all your skills drawing with microns to translate directly 1:1 to a tablet. It's a different tool and requires different skills. In the end, whatever tool you use, it is just that, a tool to help you create art. I love tablets and the ease of creating digitally, but equally much I love the directness of drawing lines on a paper. Both pens and digital pens have pros and cons, so in the end you gotta decide what's best for you.

Fredrik_S wrote:

For hooking up to a computer, in my opinion, wacom is still the best. They make solid products that lasts for years. Go with a size that fits your table, but don't get the smallest one. It's too cramped to be comfortable to work on.

I was planning on doing a Wacom, all the guides I found (and the artist friend I spoke to) resoundingly said that if you can afford it, go with a Intuos Pro first. When I first started considering this, I was actually looking at a Cintiqs, since that's the one I had heard of, but apparently that's not the smartest first step to take.

Mario_Alba wrote:

I would say that, if you're curious and can afford one, there is no reason not to...... That said, I think you're going to be learning whether you get one or stick to pen and paper. Heck, do both if you can!

I think I am!

Hey! I finally managed to sit down and draw a thing!

IMAGE(https://smackfolio.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/lamia.jpg)

This is a major NPC character for a new D&D side project.

So I am definitely going to start with the trial for Character Creator 3 or iClone 7 but I don't know how long it will be on discount %50 off so I might pull the trigger after a day or two of messing around.

Any opinions? The reason I am looking into it is that I want to spend time iterating on characters and scenes rather than rigging, modeling and scene setup. I can do all of those and i can draw figures but feel CC3 and or iC7 will be huge time savers. So I can then improve designs and have them be higher quality.

As it is, it will take significant time as I will want more stylized body types so I will have to create my own body morphs. (not adding an additional $150 for the stylized body pack) Again I would rather do that and make props, armor and set pieces than rig and create controls for it.

So the big question is which or both? If I go with CC3 then I will have to do scene setup and rendering in Blender. How much material creation can be done in CC3 is unclear. The skin shaders look pretty amazing in CC3 so I hope that carries over to blender. I may have to look into free texture packs for Blender but my final look is illustrated so I will be using mostly solid colors. It would be a bonus to have nice stock materials if I decide to try for a watercolor look.

If I go with iC7, if comes with a moderately stripped down version of CC3. Unfortunately some of the features stripped, like some exporting options, are ones I think I would make use of. But, I may not have to worry about conversion anomalies to Blender since I might not have to use it.

If I go with both, it will only be $100 more but iC7 usability is unknown so I may end up having to use Blender anyways. Another thing I worry about is the render quality without the iRay plugin ($$$ extra). I get the feeling all their promo shots are done in iRay. I'd be getting iRay for scene setup, stock materials I could tweak and the renderer. Blender has a very nice renderer so if it is noticeably better, iC7 will be a waste.

https://www.reallusion.com/character...

Why not Poser or Daz Studio?
Poser costs just as much and the posing and importing of clothes and armor are very awkward.
Daz Studio has a free version but its usability and things like custom body morphs are awkward too. Plus performance is poor when manipulating figures. CC3 is designed for games so the models may not be as detailed as Daz or Poser but they are high rez enough for the work I want to do. (plus if I ever wanted to do game stuff with my characters, CC3 has mesh reduction, LOD creation, and exporting for games)

Any opinions or anyone have any experience to share?

I know absolutely nothing about 3D modeling, painting and/or sculpting, so I'm afraid I'm no help here.

Finished my map of Athkatla for Eleima's D&D game. Kind of a mix of existing maps of the city with some Baldurs Gate 2 aesthetics thrown into it. Only the second time i've tried using watercolour for maps, and the first time i've tried it in more of an abstract method, rather than laying out each proper street, etc.

Seems to work quite well (but takes a LOT of time!)

IMAGE(https://smackfolio.files.wordpress.com/2020/03/athkatla-colour-smaller.jpg)