UPDATE:
some more thumbnails. Tried to make them as small and quick as i could, but i ended up spending too much time on 2 of them. total time taken, however, was 12 minutes, 35 seconds and 34 milliseconds [i lub stopwatches] .
#2 and #9 are my favourites atm. I like the 'belt' holding 4 or 5 rum 'bottles' {?}. And i'm wondering if the ponytail should be longer and whatnot. other than that, i think its obvious that i'm adamant about having the "ka gauntlet" and i'm trying to fit in the bulky belt, and 2 swords with a diagonal seath across the back....
any thoughts on the thumbnails are welcome, including personal preferences, or things u guys would like to see added, changed, or mixed up.
okay, i'd made a few more thumbs, but none of them really yelled out "u like me". So i'm not posting them up here. After i'd felt kinda bored of drawing thumbs, i thought, "hey might aswell make a bigger sketch of the guy i liked". so i did. It was supposed to be really rough, and it was, but i continuously kept darkening and thickening lines, and now it looks less-than-rough.
Even still, i'm looking for any comments and crits you guys may have:
I think i'm at a stage where, i know what i want the guy to basically look like [shape, proportions, weight-class [lol]], but i just need to handle things like, armour, and small decorative items [bandages, studed wrist-bands?]
any ideas would be great! i'm open to suggestions.
well done Abhishek. it's too bad you drew this one on lined paper, because i think it looks pretty good. i won't say i told you so (or chastise you for drawing thumbnails waaaay too big or drawing on lined paper ), but notice how much better he looks when you draw him at an angle instead of front-on?
glad you took the time to darken up the lines, it's a pretty solid drawing. muchl like your DomWar entry, it does appear that you've already made up your mind about the character, which is why thumbnails aren't seeming to do you any good. but keep doing them--much like some other drawing exercises, they do benefit your art greatly, even if the drawings themselves don't seem to show it.
anyway, he's looking pretty good. you're still going to need some more "flavor" though, in terms of the costume. right now it's got a few nice token elements, but developing those will help sell this character. try out some different shoulder pad shapes, for instance, or ways to give the pants more character. since he's shirtless, aside from tattoos (cliche), you've got to invest a lot of the costuming flavor into the pants... so try working on a more elaborate waist-wrap or loincloth, and maybe some sort of pattern to go on the pants. stripes, as the simplest possibility, or rips or whatever.
try to avoid embellishing a character by just adding more details or accessories, though, it will give him a too-cluttered look.
as part of my critique, here is a quick photoshop adjusting your proportions a little. he's looking pretty good overall, but the head is too small and torso is too long. so i made the head a little bigger, scaled up the legs to be longer proportionally, and then adjusted the left arm, too, to be equal to the right. hope this helps out some.
from here, just continue to develop the character as you say you're intending to. after another more developed drawing or two, you should actually be ready for an ortho.
yay! [the compliments overwhelm me so much that i don't give a rat's ass that u spelt my name wrong !]
im glad u see some improvement in my art. the advice is clearly helping me. so... notes:
- keep doing thumbnails
- keep away from lined paper
- make sure that u listen to Gauss, and others [if they're kind enough to crit :P]
- play the field, don't stick with 1 girlfriend [if any problems with parents, notify them of Gauss ]
- traditional art skills pay off during digital art
- Gauss has the right to say "i told you so" at least once
- develop costumes.!
thanks again. will try out what u'd suggested on the 'costume' things
____
UPDATE:
prior to seeing Gauss's tips, i made a few sketches in my sketchbook to try out some different costumes. Trying to give the guy 'flavour' as Gauss called it [well okay fine, he called it 'flavor'].
My favourite so far is #4... but that's the flavour "chocolate". I like chocolate, but i love butterscotch! Still gonna work at getting me that butterscotch... maybe #6 will be what i'm looking for, but right now, im sleepy. good night [its only 16:06, but heat makes u sleeps... i have my excuses ]
long time no update [long time no crits either... but whatever].
finally [today] got the chance to sit down with the sketchbook again. Made some thumbs [not too happy about most of them] but then there was one which i seemed to like. I thought, hey, might make a bigger one of that, so here it is:
now then... looking for all sorts of crits and suggestions... and maybe even a "go-code"..... should i start work on the orthos?
also, im moving to Toronto [for the next 3 years yay] friday next week... so things are a bit busy atm. and i _might_ not resume work till im well into June [cargo will reach some time in june, then i dont know about the net connection].. so i hope to get a crap load of advice to print out .
thanks guys. looking forward to all the help i can get!
sounds like a big move, Abhishek. traveling is good for working on drawing, though--what you really ought to do is buy some sort of bound sketchbook, anything so long as it doesn't have lined paper. ring-bound, leather bound, traditional hardback, look in the journal section of bookstores and ask if they have any sketchbooks. get something smallish, like half the size of a piece of paper, and you'll be able to keep it with you most places. while you've got some down time (or on those looong plane trips you'll be on), it'll be your best friend.
the only other advice i can really give at this point comes from thinking of my own experience learning to draw at about your age... there was a character from a movie that i really liked, so for a very long time i drew him over and over and over until i could draw him accurately in just about any pose. i did other drawings, too, but i always drew this one character.
this might not be the best thing for you, but whatever you do, the road of improvement will involve a lot of practicing on drawing things from observation as well as imagination. especially if you want to draw characters well, then you're going to have to be able to draw people.
as to Watashi Kaizoku here,i think you've got a pretty sound idea of what he ought to look like. go ahead a try an ortho on for size! you need to do front, side, and back. draw his arms out from his sides at a natural 45 degree angle. and most importantly, every feature must match up! that is to say, if his shoulderpad is a certain length and height in the front, it should be exactly the same dimensions and at the same placement on the body in the side and back views. that's the whole point of an ortho, is to line everything up and get it into 3D accurarely as possible. so orthos can be surprisingly difficult in that respect--you need to take the time to be accurate and precise, but also keep the essence of the character intact through such a stiff presentation.
you're doing well, but as far as crits and all... realize that you won't always get them, and certainly not always on a daily basis. polycount will still be here for you, but you're going to have to be able to work under your own power for stretches of time. just keep sketching, that's the most important thing. learn to evaluate your own work critically--we'll be here to help you out, but most of the work is yours, not ours.
good updates, hope you're able to get modeling before you leave for Toronto!
hehe... yeah... 21 hours on the plane.:D unfortunately all my small sketchbooks have been shipped already, and i'd buy another if
a) i didn't have 3 already and; b) i (we) had some Rupees left [its all canadian dollars now and what rupees we have must be kept 'in case']
i do have a A4 size sketchbook on which i was planning on practicing during the ride. I was also hoping on fiding some dirt cheap comics of spiderman to copy off of... don't think i'll be able to though . so i'll just draw my hand or some ppl on the plane or something [ooh ooh ooh... i'll draw clouds ]. wukk definately try and follow that advice [on drawing movie characters], but Jack Sparrow may be difficult... we'll see.
______
As for the orthos, thanks for clarifying them up. This will be my first hand draw set of orthos... so tips on how to line them up would be nice . So far, i thought i'd draw them on graph paper so i could line em up on seperate sheets? just a thought.
with that in mind: UPDATE:
i know the head is out of proportion [my bro made me very aware of that]... but what about the other proportions? i never was any good with them. oh and i didn't draw his flasks, cuz they would only get in the way, and they can be modelled without orthos [as seperate objects] anyways... right choice or was it not?
as for crits... yeah i know... i just get a bit impatient sometimes lol...
looking forward to all the advice i can get.
peace
I think the best way to understand the body is to take one apart. Andrew Jones worked in a morgue I think to study anatomy and I'm pretty sure Da Vinci did as well.
So I think the police really mixed things up and Jeffery Dahmer was really just a guy trying to learn anatomy for art. Silly justice system.
yeah i agree.. but whenever i walk upto my brother with an axe or a saw, he tends to run away and call the cups wtf?!
lol, seriously though, i don't think i get what u mean exactly? i was actually going through the Reference Thread, and saw the different parts of the body with muscle structure etc. as a post [whole load of images.] do u mean studying those?
________
UPDATE:
Orthos:
front and side view only. tell me what i'm doing right/wrong and what i should look out for etc. etc...
oh, and do i really need a back view?
PS: i'll be busy the next few days [amusement park with cousins ftw] so i might actually not get back till mid or end june [oh noes]. i'll see if i can at least get some modelling done.
hmm... if that means that he did a good job into making me a better artist over this thread: thanks! And even otherwise, that IS true.
______
UPDATE:
Alright, am i going to fast? basemesh already!
looking for comments on polyflow, anatomy, the works. And if u think i should go back to the drawing board [its too late] convince me, and i might take a few steps back.
Torso is too long, legs are too short, pecs are wrong, would probably make more sense to model the feet flat, and you should get some reference. Polyflow looks mostly okay, but the model really looks like you didn't use any reference at all, and need to. Should be easy fixes, though. Good luck.
meant to post this earlier Abhishek, but was working on something to help you and others out on the whole ortho business.
for hand-drawn orthos, it's easier than you think, but it still takes time. everything needs to line up, that's the big thing. the way to do that is generally by starting with the front on the left edge of the paper (turn your a4 landscape, do it all on one sheet). once you've got the front image, then use a ruler and ghost out the major features with lines--top and bottom of head, shoulders, hips, etc. you can add lines as you need them developing the side and front.
general guidelines: keep the feet on the floor. this is one of those issues where some modelers go the other way on it, but generally drawing and the modeling the feet actually standing on the floor seems to save time.
the biggest trouble you're having with the ortho (and therefore the model) aside from proportions is what you might call 'motion,' 'energy,' or 'dynamism.' this is something all artists are constantly striving to improve. laying down an ortho tends to reveal where you're missing it especially, because you have to take all the energy out of the pose and depend only on whats in the form.
i realize that sounds fairly vague, so for an example: the side view of the ortho/model. this character is rail-straight up and down. look at yourself sideways in the mirror, everyone has dynamic forms in profile.
so for reference, i highly suggest Andrew Loomis' "Figure Drawing for All it's Worth", because Loomis is a great illustrator and best of all, the book is free online here: http://www.fineart.sk/index.php?s=8&cat=12
in particular look at the ideal proportions male: http://www.fineart.sk/show.php?w=896
look over the book, but one of the keys to getting proportions down is counting head heights. use the character's head as template--well proportioned characters are 7 to 8 heads high, really heroic ones can even be 9. as Loomis shows: http://www.fineart.sk/show.php?w=898
only trouble with Loomis drawings, dynamic as they are, is that they were never intended as orthographics for modeling characters in 3D. which is why as a help to you and other people wanting to model characters, i've spent some time converting his ideal male into a decent ortho.
now with Watashi, you'll probably want 8 or 9 heads high it looks, and somewhat more exaggerated proportions than normal. so wait a few minutes and i'll upload a sketchover on your ortho.
i know you want to get on with the modeling stage here, but working on characters is cumulative: if you don't take the time needed in each step, the end product will stink. so set aside your model for now and get the ortho right before moving forward again. the model will be a great deal better for taking that little extra effort, instead of endlessly trying to fix a poorly proportioned model.
there you go. just a sketch, but look at how much more 'energy' there is to the side view. don't take that loomis ortho as gospel, though--i just wanted to clean up that drawing for other people if they wanted to use it. and of course you may want to make your character taller or thinner or fatter, whatever, but its still a pretty strong general guideline.
well, i can finally see the images u posted up Gauss [then again i wasn't expecting net trouble in canada was i?] thank you very much. obviously there is not a complex enough way to say thank you....
unfortunately, i have taken a long break from this project, and i have to get back on track. but i was wondering [since i've already been off it for so long] would it harm my aim if i were to try out the new competition at artisans? [extreme makeovers]. before coming back to this project, that is. i could use the skills i learned here to try out for that compo...
looking for some professional opinion... should i try out for that compo? cuz i really want to, and i personally see it as practice in a more competitive form anyways. what say you?
once again, thank you all for your support thus far!
hey man, good that you're settled into your new digs.
as far as the gameartisan compo, knock yourself out--but i will say that it'll help you to complete projects before moving on, like you did with the Dominance War. so if you come back to this guy it'd be beneficial, and of course you can continue to update this thread with pics from your GA.org contest entry.
meh, it seems as though that compo is for ppl with pre-2006 models [and not ppl who wanna recreate a classic game-model]. oh well, not that im : it just gives me another reason to come back to this project [which i will finish, not to worry].
okay, so, update:
i think i screwed up again? oh and it feels a bit wonky or angled doesn't it? i find it really difficult to make the front view symmetrical, which really annoys me to be honest. do i really need both halves of the front?
apart from that. something feels wrong. overlaying the loomis image to my drawing in PS shows that i've messed up on the legs etc. in terms of 'positioning' them. is that the problem?
not quite sure what's wrong. so [as always] all help is welcome.
thanks
PS: gauss: permission to attempt orthos using only black lines in photoshop?
try and get some crits first, and then you can move onto the ortho.
right now the legs don't seem quite long enough, head's still on the small side, and the whole image is slanty (probably not a problem with the image itself). on the plus side, you've got more volume/form on thye side ortho, so nice work on that, and overall you're showing shapes and form on the ortho much better than before.
Perhaps you could try starting as small as possible and working up from there. That means that the character actually starts as a vertical line (which will also keep it from getting wonky) which you divide into eight sections after which you can roughly sketch out the forms and the detail after that. I think looking at the big picture more could really help with your proportions.
Also, personally I just grabbed Loomis' books and simply started drawing his drawings. Just re-drawing without having to think about design or elements really helped (and still helps) me get a feel of the human body.
yeah, just like ComradeJ said it my suggestion for you would also be to start drawing stuff from a drawing book or photo off. it will become your very foundation. you will start to get enough feel for proportion and will enhance your visual libary of forms/....
dont stress yourself with the results too much, the goal will be to just doing it, one after the other.
its not important to choose the right book/photo/drawing...
just give yourself 1-2 hours a day the time to do it. in my opinion you(&all others who actually do it) cant fail with such a plan, you will get better! there is no secret, you just have to do it!
@ComradeJ: hmm.. good idea. i seem to have forgotten about guidelines and whatnot. tanks for the tip on that. As for redrawing things, i'll give it a try. I'm sure it could help.
@xysdf: thanks for furthering the advice. i'll try copying from art books [or copying pictures off the newspapers?] and see the development i get. If it's fool proof [according to ur guarantee lol] then i'll be crazy if i didn't give it a serious shot.
If i do have ppl dedicated to helping me [i know there are some] and u think i've diverted attention and hence not updated... well, okay, ur kinda right. I got a job teaching 3d art to kids at school [its a summer camp where i'm an instructor]. $8/hour but its still a job, w00t w00t! So that goes from 8am to 4pm and im pooped when i reach home. So, maybe things will be slow for a little bit.
not to worry though.
peace!
and thank you once again
and till i come back, i'll let some crits pile on
Replies
some more thumbnails. Tried to make them as small and quick as i could, but i ended up spending too much time on 2 of them. total time taken, however, was 12 minutes, 35 seconds and 34 milliseconds [i lub stopwatches]
#2 and #9 are my favourites atm. I like the 'belt' holding 4 or 5 rum 'bottles' {?}. And i'm wondering if the ponytail should be longer and whatnot. other than that, i think its obvious that i'm adamant about having the "ka gauntlet" and i'm trying to fit in the bulky belt, and 2 swords with a diagonal seath across the back....
any thoughts on the thumbnails are welcome, including personal preferences, or things u guys would like to see added, changed, or mixed up.
Even still, i'm looking for any comments and crits you guys may have:
I think i'm at a stage where, i know what i want the guy to basically look like [shape, proportions, weight-class [lol]], but i just need to handle things like, armour, and small decorative items [bandages, studed wrist-bands?]
any ideas would be great! i'm open to suggestions.
glad you took the time to darken up the lines, it's a pretty solid drawing. muchl like your DomWar entry, it does appear that you've already made up your mind about the character, which is why thumbnails aren't seeming to do you any good. but keep doing them--much like some other drawing exercises, they do benefit your art greatly, even if the drawings themselves don't seem to show it.
anyway, he's looking pretty good. you're still going to need some more "flavor" though, in terms of the costume. right now it's got a few nice token elements, but developing those will help sell this character. try out some different shoulder pad shapes, for instance, or ways to give the pants more character. since he's shirtless, aside from tattoos (cliche), you've got to invest a lot of the costuming flavor into the pants... so try working on a more elaborate waist-wrap or loincloth, and maybe some sort of pattern to go on the pants. stripes, as the simplest possibility, or rips or whatever.
try to avoid embellishing a character by just adding more details or accessories, though, it will give him a too-cluttered look.
as part of my critique, here is a quick photoshop adjusting your proportions a little. he's looking pretty good overall, but the head is too small and torso is too long. so i made the head a little bigger, scaled up the legs to be longer proportionally, and then adjusted the left arm, too, to be equal to the right. hope this helps out some.
from here, just continue to develop the character as you say you're intending to. after another more developed drawing or two, you should actually be ready for an ortho.
edit: spelling
im glad u see some improvement in my art. the advice is clearly helping me. so... notes:
- keep doing thumbnails
- keep away from lined paper
- make sure that u listen to Gauss, and others [if they're kind enough to crit :P]
- play the field, don't stick with 1 girlfriend [if any problems with parents, notify them of Gauss
- traditional art skills pay off during digital art
- Gauss has the right to say "i told you so" at least once
- develop costumes.!
thanks again. will try out what u'd suggested on the 'costume' things
____
UPDATE:
prior to seeing Gauss's tips, i made a few sketches in my sketchbook to try out some different costumes. Trying to give the guy 'flavour' as Gauss called it [well okay fine, he called it 'flavor'].
My favourite so far is #4... but that's the flavour "chocolate". I like chocolate, but i love butterscotch! Still gonna work at getting me that butterscotch... maybe #6 will be what i'm looking for, but right now, im sleepy. good night [its only 16:06, but heat makes u sleeps... i have my excuses
feel free to crit me!
thanks in advance!
finally [today] got the chance to sit down with the sketchbook again. Made some thumbs [not too happy about most of them] but then there was one which i seemed to like. I thought, hey, might make a bigger one of that, so here it is:
now then... looking for all sorts of crits and suggestions... and maybe even a "go-code"..... should i start work on the orthos?
also, im moving to Toronto [for the next 3 years yay] friday next week... so things are a bit busy atm. and i _might_ not resume work till im well into June [cargo will reach some time in june, then i dont know about the net connection].. so i hope to get a crap load of advice to print out
thanks guys. looking forward to all the help i can get!
the only other advice i can really give at this point comes from thinking of my own experience learning to draw at about your age... there was a character from a movie that i really liked, so for a very long time i drew him over and over and over until i could draw him accurately in just about any pose. i did other drawings, too, but i always drew this one character.
this might not be the best thing for you, but whatever you do, the road of improvement will involve a lot of practicing on drawing things from observation as well as imagination. especially if you want to draw characters well, then you're going to have to be able to draw people.
as to Watashi Kaizoku here,i think you've got a pretty sound idea of what he ought to look like. go ahead a try an ortho on for size!
you're doing well, but as far as crits and all... realize that you won't always get them, and certainly not always on a daily basis. polycount will still be here for you, but you're going to have to be able to work under your own power for stretches of time. just keep sketching, that's the most important thing. learn to evaluate your own work critically--we'll be here to help you out, but most of the work is yours, not ours.
good updates, hope you're able to get modeling before you leave for Toronto!
a) i didn't have 3 already
i do have a A4 size sketchbook on which i was planning on practicing during the ride. I was also hoping on fiding some dirt cheap comics of spiderman to copy off of... don't think i'll be able to though
______
As for the orthos, thanks for clarifying them up. This will be my first hand draw set of orthos... so tips on how to line them up would be nice
with that in mind: UPDATE:
i know the head is out of proportion [my bro made me very aware of that]... but what about the other proportions? i never was any good with them. oh and i didn't draw his flasks, cuz they would only get in the way, and they can be modelled without orthos [as seperate objects] anyways... right choice or was it not?
as for crits... yeah i know... i just get a bit impatient sometimes lol...
looking forward to all the advice i can get.
peace
So I think the police really mixed things up and Jeffery Dahmer was really just a guy trying to learn anatomy for art. Silly justice system.
lol, seriously though, i don't think i get what u mean exactly? i was actually going through the Reference Thread, and saw the different parts of the body with muscle structure etc. as a post [whole load of images.] do u mean studying those?
________
UPDATE:
Orthos:
front and side view only. tell me what i'm doing right/wrong and what i should look out for etc. etc...
oh, and do i really need a back view?
PS: i'll be busy the next few days [amusement park with cousins ftw] so i might actually not get back till mid or end june [oh noes]. i'll see if i can at least get some modelling done.
peace
______
UPDATE:
Alright, am i going to fast? basemesh already!
looking for comments on polyflow, anatomy, the works. And if u think i should go back to the drawing board [its too late] convince me, and i might take a few steps back.
please do crit!
peace. and thank you!
for hand-drawn orthos, it's easier than you think, but it still takes time. everything needs to line up, that's the big thing. the way to do that is generally by starting with the front on the left edge of the paper (turn your a4 landscape, do it all on one sheet). once you've got the front image, then use a ruler and ghost out the major features with lines--top and bottom of head, shoulders, hips, etc. you can add lines as you need them developing the side and front.
general guidelines: keep the feet on the floor. this is one of those issues where some modelers go the other way on it, but generally drawing and the modeling the feet actually standing on the floor seems to save time.
the biggest trouble you're having with the ortho (and therefore the model) aside from proportions is what you might call 'motion,' 'energy,' or 'dynamism.' this is something all artists are constantly striving to improve. laying down an ortho tends to reveal where you're missing it especially, because you have to take all the energy out of the pose and depend only on whats in the form.
i realize that sounds fairly vague, so for an example: the side view of the ortho/model. this character is rail-straight up and down. look at yourself sideways in the mirror, everyone has dynamic forms in profile.
so for reference, i highly suggest Andrew Loomis' "Figure Drawing for All it's Worth", because Loomis is a great illustrator and best of all, the book is free online here:
http://www.fineart.sk/index.php?s=8&cat=12
in particular look at the ideal proportions male:
http://www.fineart.sk/show.php?w=896
look over the book, but one of the keys to getting proportions down is counting head heights. use the character's head as template--well proportioned characters are 7 to 8 heads high, really heroic ones can even be 9. as Loomis shows:
http://www.fineart.sk/show.php?w=898
only trouble with Loomis drawings, dynamic as they are, is that they were never intended as orthographics for modeling characters in 3D. which is why as a help to you and other people wanting to model characters, i've spent some time converting his ideal male into a decent ortho.
http://www.gausswerks.com/img/loomisorthomale.jpg
now with Watashi, you'll probably want 8 or 9 heads high it looks, and somewhat more exaggerated proportions than normal. so wait a few minutes and i'll upload a sketchover on your ortho.
i know you want to get on with the modeling stage here, but working on characters is cumulative: if you don't take the time needed in each step, the end product will stink. so set aside your model for now and get the ortho right before moving forward again. the model will be a great deal better for taking that little extra effort, instead of endlessly trying to fix a poorly proportioned model.
there you go. just a sketch, but look at how much more 'energy' there is to the side view. don't take that loomis ortho as gospel, though--i just wanted to clean up that drawing for other people if they wanted to use it. and of course you may want to make your character taller or thinner or fatter, whatever, but its still a pretty strong general guideline.
im now on the grid in toronto!
yay!
well, i can finally see the images u posted up Gauss [then again i wasn't expecting net trouble in canada was i?] thank you very much. obviously there is not a complex enough way to say thank you....
unfortunately, i have taken a long break from this project, and i have to get back on track. but i was wondering [since i've already been off it for so long] would it harm my aim if i were to try out the new competition at artisans? [extreme makeovers]. before coming back to this project, that is. i could use the skills i learned here to try out for that compo...
looking for some professional opinion... should i try out for that compo? cuz i really want to, and i personally see it as practice in a more competitive form anyways. what say you?
once again, thank you all for your support thus far!
as far as the gameartisan compo, knock yourself out--but i will say that it'll help you to complete projects before moving on, like you did with the Dominance War. so if you come back to this guy it'd be beneficial, and of course you can continue to update this thread with pics from your GA.org contest entry.
okay, so, update:
i think i screwed up again? oh and it feels a bit wonky or angled doesn't it? i find it really difficult to make the front view symmetrical, which really annoys me to be honest. do i really need both halves of the front?
apart from that. something feels wrong. overlaying the loomis image to my drawing in PS shows that i've messed up on the legs etc. in terms of 'positioning' them. is that the problem?
not quite sure what's wrong. so [as always] all help is welcome.
thanks
PS: gauss: permission to attempt orthos using only black lines in photoshop?
right now the legs don't seem quite long enough, head's still on the small side, and the whole image is slanty (probably not a problem with the image itself). on the plus side, you've got more volume/form on thye side ortho, so nice work on that, and overall you're showing shapes and form on the ortho much better than before.
Also, personally I just grabbed Loomis' books and simply started drawing his drawings. Just re-drawing without having to think about design or elements really helped (and still helps) me get a feel of the human body.
dont stress yourself with the results too much, the goal will be to just doing it, one after the other.
its not important to choose the right book/photo/drawing...
just give yourself 1-2 hours a day the time to do it. in my opinion you(&all others who actually do it) cant fail with such a plan, you will get better! there is no secret, you just have to do it!
@ComradeJ: hmm.. good idea. i seem to have forgotten about guidelines and whatnot. tanks for the tip on that. As for redrawing things, i'll give it a try. I'm sure it could help.
@xysdf: thanks for furthering the advice. i'll try copying from art books [or copying pictures off the newspapers?] and see the development i get. If it's fool proof [according to ur guarantee lol] then i'll be crazy if i didn't give it a serious shot.
If i do have ppl dedicated to helping me [i know there are some] and u think i've diverted attention and hence not updated... well, okay, ur kinda right. I got a job teaching 3d art to kids at school [its a summer camp where i'm an instructor]. $8/hour but its still a job, w00t w00t! So that goes from 8am to 4pm and im pooped when i reach home. So, maybe things will be slow for a little bit.
not to worry though.
peace!
and thank you once again
and till i come back, i'll let some crits pile on
any suggestions are more than welcome.... next week is a holiday for me, so "yay!"
thank you
peace