Tablet practice, now with 100% more spaceship!

MashPotato · Wed 01/10/2008 04:00:52

It's lookin' good so far!

Realism is not my strength, and I didn't look at any references so take all I say with a grain of salt

, but I made a quick paintover (my edit on right):

The main thing was the eye shape--the inside corners of the eyes seemed to be going a bit upward, so I moved those down a bit, made them slightly larger, and added some space between the eye and the lower lashes. I decreased the shadow of the philtrum, and since the head seems to be downward slightly (judging from the shape of the nose), I flattened the lips a bit.

I also trimmed the head on our right a bit. Something that really helps me in determining shape and balance is to flip the canvas occasionally and work from the other side, as it helps you see the picture in a fresh light

My paintover's not very good, but I hope this helps in some way

Keep up the good work, Ben!

ThreeOhFour · Wed 01/10/2008 04:10:27

Oh sweet! This edit is really good!

I really like the shape of the eyes especially, I see where I was going wrong

. I'll have a shot at trying all these things you've mentioned, as soon as I find out what a "philtrum" is

Big thanks, Mash!

auriond · Thu 02/10/2008 01:20:31

Beautiful work on the eyes, Mash!

As for the hair, right now it looks like she's got her hair slicked down in a centre parting that goes all the way to the back of her head. If you want to give her hair more volume to make it look natural, try filling in the gap between the two parts of her hair at the back of her head. Mash has also made the top of her head slimmer so as to make the top of her head look a little less flat. That's a subtle change, but effective.

ThreeOhFour · Sun 05/10/2008 09:24:59

Yay, I finally got some time to work on this again:

I've tried to follow your example fairly closely here, Mash, so hopefully it's starting to look close to finished

Auriond - I'm not 100% sure what you mean - do you mean fill in the little "v" shape at the top of the hair to make it smooth and rounded?

Thanks for the advice once more

auriond · Mon 06/10/2008 01:33:03

Yes, exactly. If your hair is long enough, give yourself a centre parting; then look in the mirror and tilt your head down slightly. The outline of your head will likely be round at the top, unless your parting extends all the way to the back of the head (which is very uncommon).

ThreeOhFour · Mon 06/10/2008 03:22:50

My hair is long enough and I have been parting it this way for 5 years and I never noticed this.

Must be brain problems on my behalf

Better?

auriond · Mon 06/10/2008 09:55:30

Not brain problems, just some things we overlook in life. If I hadn't taken up drawing as a hobby I wouldn't have noticed a lot of things about the human face either

I think it looks good the way it is, unless you're going for perfection. There are still a few little things that can be changed, but I don't know how to describe them. I don't have access to my tablet right now so I can't do a paintover for you, but I'll do that as soon as I can.

ThreeOhFour · Mon 06/10/2008 15:16:31

I'm not exactly going for 'perfection' but if there are improvements that could be made here, I'd appreciate the advice, and paintover

I'm not a perfectionist, I just like improving until I can't improve anymore

Matti · Mon 06/10/2008 15:25:48

I think the eyes are a little bit to small. They're definitely a bit to far away from the nose, but putting them nearer wouldn't do the trick. So I suggest you should make them a bit larger.

The nose is okay but could be improved too. Unfortunately I don't know how to describe it and what exactly is to change. I can't do a paintover right now but perhaps I'll make one in a few days.

But altogether it's a nice peace of art and improving with every version.

Uhfgood · Mon 06/10/2008 17:26:57

Quote from: Ben304 on Mon 06/10/2008 03:22:50
My hair is long enough and I have been parting it this way for 5 years and I never noticed this.

Must be brain problems on my behalf

Better?

Ben, I didn't know you were a green-eyed female? (unless that picture is a man) ;-)

Edit by ProgZ: Please don't quote images.

paolo · Mon 06/10/2008 18:50:26

The nose looks flat to me. If you look at the brow, the eyes, the cheekbones and the lips, these all have depth, but the nose looks two-dimensional. I think it might be to do with the symmetry of the shadows, and also that the shadows come up right the sides of the wide part of the nose - if the lighting is from above, would they come up this far? I can't really say how this could be made to look better, I'm afraid.

ThreeOhFour · Tue 07/10/2008 11:17:28

Matti - thanks for the comments, if you could spare some time for a paintover I'd enjoy seeing your point of view

Paolo - I understand what you are saying. Perhaps I'll have a little play around with the shading to see if I can improve this.

Uhfgood - Except for the straightness of the hair (mine is wavy), the fact that the face is female and the pretty part of things, this might as well be a picture of me

Trent R · Wed 08/10/2008 10:37:25

Excellent, excellent, excellent!

For comments, I'd have to disagree with Matti. I think the eyes are the right size, but I think they should be moved inward. With the hair creating such a narrow column/frame for the face, the eyes lose a *bit* of focus. And let's face it, they're one of the prettiest things about women.

~Sirus Squire
~Trent Robertson
PS- Do you have a tablet laptop? Or board?

ThreeOhFour · Wed 08/10/2008 11:30:39

I'll do some playing around with the eyes - in a bunch of directions I guess, to see what works. I agree, they are one of the prettiest parts.

I'm not sure what you mean by laptop or board... my tablet is a little grey square that I sit on my lap and draw with, but has no screen attached. Forgive my ignorance of the nuances of tablet products

auriond · Wed 08/10/2008 14:57:59

You have a tablet (board).

Trent meant one of those laptops which you can draw straight onto the screen with a stylus - a tablet PC, which some people call tablets for short. It causes no end of confusion!

Ok, I had time for a paintover.

Forgive me but I further shaded the eyes, to give them more depth! But that because I did several other things that made the shaded eyes necessary:

1. I enlarged the eyes slightly just to see if it improved anything. Frankly I don't think it looks much different...
2. I darkened the eyebrows to match the hair.
3. I added more shadows around the nose to define it more.
4. I added shading around the round part of the nose (what's it called?) to define the cheeks.
5. I added shadows below the bottom lip to indicate the slope of the chin.
6. I added shading around the hairline to make her forehead rounder.
7. I rounded her chin off a little as it was leaning a little too much to the left.
8. I messed with the shading of the hair to smoothen out the highlights a little.
9. I darkened the corners of her mouth to show the skin being pulled back in a smile.

I think she aged a lot as a result, and got an attitude to boot

Oh well, hopefully you can get something from this paintover without doing that. And somewhere in the paintover I accidentally smoothed out your paintbrush strokes. Sorry about that! It wasn't done on purpose, I assure you

ThreeOhFour · Thu 09/10/2008 12:11:20

Wow. That's absolutely fantastic.

I am taking this and saving it and staring at it for a while. Maybe then I'll have a go at trying to paint in these suggestions

Wonderful, I really appreciate this paintover!

Matti · Thu 09/10/2008 16:14:21

Well done, auriond. At least the nose is absolutely perfect now. The darkened mouthcorners are a great improvement too.

ThreeOhFour · Sat 11/10/2008 05:50:57

Hey hey

Spent some more time on this, following your example, auriond.

It's still got room for improvement but considering it really is just a practice sketch and the fact that I've spent tons of time on it already, I'll probably move on for now and come back later to see what I can improve. With regards to smoothing out the brushstrokes - well, I think the way I set the brush up leaves behind little brush strokes, but they don't bother me too much. I guess I'd go for a 'smooth' look like yours in an actual picture for a game, but for practice I don't think they are harmful

.

I really appreciate both paintovers, thanks a bunch!

MashPotato · Sun 12/10/2008 03:39:10

Nice to see how this came along

Spiffy job!

ThreeOhFour · Sun 12/10/2008 05:31:46

Thanks Mash

Time to move on

. Because the only thing that I love drawing more than spaceships is more spaceships, I decided it was time to put my tablet time towards doing a space ship.

YAY!

It's a pretty rough version, but this took me a fair while as it was, (I guess I'll get faster as I practice - this was a couple of hours, I think o_O). Have you any hints for me?

I know some of you guys get all interested in lines and stuff, so I left the basic lineart I did to start the sketch off in the corner

. I'll no doubt add little fine details when it's clear that the sketch is close to a finished version.