Katanasoul- Really needs help with colour...

[Katanasoul]

Hi, my name is Sarah or Katanasoul on most art related communitys. I started with manga themed art in 2003 and did that for quite a while.
But eventually I started realizing that I wanted to become better at drawing and I wanted to learn how to paint. To me that meant that I had to practice more.
My best friend avisnocturna told me that conceptart´s a great community, so I thought I could give it a try, even though I´m still afraid I might not be good enough to be here.
I´m trying to become more professional over time and work a lot to get there. I appreciate if you help me becoming better by giving advice or just stopping by and having a look at what I´m doing.

So today, I´m gonna start posting!



This is something I really wish someone could give me advice. It is my very first try to do something digitaly, so I got Artweaver and started. It did not turn out the way I wanted it to. I did not get along with anything...
(The photo is taken from link.)



These are some birds I did a while ago. As all the other pieces in this posting, this is done in penicl only. I love birds.





Two human studys drawn with foto reference. I could definitly improve my anatomy skills...

[seetsy]

cool stuff, nice start to ur sb.
i like the soft approach to the shading on those birds.
going to try out that artweaver program
keep posting

[SMILEFACE]

for your first digi thats really great i would keep doing more the more you do the more you will be able to get results that you want but i think it looks great! an luv the birds an the dress keep up the goods

[Katanasoul]

Thank you very much for you repliies!
I´m glad you like it, and I will go on posting as much as I can.

Yesterday, I downloaded the trial version of photoshop CS2. If I get along with it, I guess I´m going to buy it after my birthday in june. I took a tutorial by Linda Bergkvist and tried to draw an eye in photoshop. I think it could have turned out worse, but still I did not get everything the way I wanted to. Didn´t understand that part about texture and how to do that, so I´d be glad if somebody told me.



And again, two pencil sketches done in a train and at university. Each one took about ten minutes. Don´t ask me why I had mustard with me...

[Ricardo Robles]

Your pencil work is so good, keep it up.

[Haal100]

Whooooa, nice pieces.

The birds are great and the first human study with the wrinkle~dress is insane ! Hope we´re going to see a lot of more from you!
Keep up t e h good work.

[flowereater]

Was that eye your first try at photoshop? It's amazingly amazing, i like it even
more than the one on the tutorial haha... but it's nowhere as amazing as those
birds, I can't believe the quality of the shading you've put on them.
your sketchbook looks very promising! can't wait to see more.

[Katanasoul]

Thank you very much for your comments, you´re really motivating me to work harder!

@flowereater: No, it actually is my second try. My first is the face in the first post of this sketchbook. But I am very happy that you like it, even though I guess the original is much better than mine.

So, here I am with new studys!



At the weekend, I visited my grandparents. They have lots of skulls of forest animals at their walls, and I took one and sketched it.



Anyway, I wasn´t able to remove the birds from the wall, so I sat there upside down on the sofa with my head on the table and sketched one of the birds above me. That was fun, but my head hurt afterwards...
The dice is from a role play game afternoon, sketched it very quickly. Looks horrible when I look at it now...

[Nele Klumpe]

nice work, dear. Birds are scary o___o

[Katanasoul]

Yesterday, I bought "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" by Betty Edwards. My best friend recomended it to me and I thought it may help me, too.

So today, I did the first exercise. It was about drawing your hand by viewing, a self portrait with a mirror and a face from imagination. So, this is what came out. Not sure if this is good at all, but I´m not doing that to be good but to improve.
It took me about half an hour to do the portrait (that does not really look like me...), ten minutes for the hand and five to ten for the face.

[Icecold]

Very ncie works, and about what did Linda mean, it's about making thing look less digital to give it texture (in this example skin looks, texture can be in most cases anything that disturbs the monotony, hope you get what i'm trying to say) cheers!

Best wishes, Ice

[CarstenJ]

Hi,

the Skulls are great, espacially the rendering. The first pic could be a litte more smooth, but it looks good anyway.

The last two faces seem to be a little bit meaningless.

[zou]

hi

very good start. Its seems you're very good at values and rendering (wich seems true for many girls i know, perhaps it's related to sensivity)

your stills are very good. Perhaps you should practice more on life drawing. (draw many portraits and live things) do many lines from life.(if you're alone draw selfportraits:one each day or each week)

The betty edwards books is good, take a look at andrew loomis's books
they are simply the best
http://www.alexhays.com/loomis/

there a good thing you can pick from conceptart: looking at the sketchbook of someone who is already taking drawing classes and do the same exercices like dorian

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/sho...d.php?p=716187


keep it

[Katanasoul]

@icecold: Thank you very much for explaining! I guess I got that now. I feel like practice is really everything about it (as if that was something completely new...). So I will try.

@CarstenJ: Thanks, I´m glad you like them. Well, this seems to be the thing about sketches one does to practice. If you´d see my blind contour drawings, you would know what meaningless really means.

@zou: Wow, this was very motivating and helpful!
Thank you for the links, I apreciate that a lot. I will work harder!

At the moment, I have got lots of work do do. I wanted to participate this weeks CHOW, so this is what I did. I am very unhappy with what came out though. The sketch was nice, but the coloured version looks horrible. If anybody could tell me why and what I could do better, I´d be very happy.

[Grafguy]

damn nice sketches!
post some higher resolution of them so we can take a closer look
as comment on the last paint, it isnt interesting enough. No use of highlights, no hard shades, nothing to focus on. The sketch and the idea are good though

keep it up, post some more stuff and you'll definetly get some stars

[Katanasoul]

@Grafguy: Thank you very much.
I hope I can do better this time. Going to work digitaly, so that I am not irritated by my wish to keep the pencil lines visible and messing up with colours then.
Stars... Well, that would be amazing! I don´t really know how to get them, but I think one has to be very good...

So, here is my first sketch for this weeks CHOW. I did it in photoshop and hope I can participate this time. Feel free to critisize- As ever.
(Still so much work do do... Having many tasks at the moment... ^^°)

[Marlisa]

Ahhw, those birdies are cute!

[JailHouseRock2]

Wonderful work Sarah! Love your CHOW sketch!

[Katanasoul]

I did the greyscales now after university and before my pilates lesson. The green fairy is such a nice topic... I am going to do my best.
Feel like I am improving... Hopefully... ^^°

[AmbientSounds]

Some really nice stuff you've got in here so far, I'm totally diggin' it. I'm also liking how your green fairy is turning out so far, great topic right? Good Luck! X)

[Nele Klumpe]

you really could post your pictures in a higher resolution, dear
The fairy's looking really nice so far!

[Eiki]

Hi

There are very nice works in your thread so far Your rendering is great!
I love that piece of the woman dressed in that fantatic gown!

Looking forward to see new things in this thread

[quackart]

well that eye from the begining is totally cool! maybe there is a way it could be better (there is probably always some way) but im a low level drawer (so far) so... you know... nice !

[Demodeus]

Nice sketchbook so far - I really like your bird sketches, your should do more of them
And the fairy wip looks nice - i kinda like the pose and i'm really looking forward to see the finished painting! But i think something about the arms does not look right to me.. maybe the upper arms are a little bit to thick.. but that might be just me ;D
go on!

[mike butkus]

I think you have talent and look forward to seeing you evolve into a fine artist.

[Eva K]

great studies! Love your pencil work

[Katanasoul]

Oh my god, thank you all for commenting!

@AmbientSounds: Thanks! Wasn´t able to finish it as I have a very important contest going right now. I think I will try finishing it when I am done, which is by the beginning of june.

@ Avis Nocturna: Love you.

@Eiki: Thank you very much. Every woman would like to have such a dress, wouldn´t she?

@quackart: Merci. Yes, I am really sure there is a way, it could be sharper and more lively, and I could have made it more vibrant. Gonna work on that.

@Demodeus: Thanks a lot! Yeah, I will do more birds, that´s for sure. I love them so much I just can´t stop drawing them. Maybe I will show you my own pet birdies, too. Got four budgies at home.
Thank you as well for you criticism, I am going to correct that.

@mike butkus: Aaaahhhh... @___@
Oh my, YOU saying something like this to me! Let me tell you that I love your work and feel very, very encouraged and proud to have such a great artist telling me I had talent. I will work very, very hard to show you and the rest of the world that I can really make it.

@Eva K: Thank you! Here is more of that.

A quick self portrait, more a colour study that everything else.



A German cinema and a bus I took this week.



A small pencil drawing of a woman, pencil and inspired by a photo I once took.

[Nele Klumpe]

The pencil work is nice as always, but you could work on your Selfportraits.

First: You might want to use bigger strokes with high opacity! Details come last.

Then I analysed your values and picked your lightest Light and darkest Dark. As you can see in the bars on the right they are pretty close. Your lightest light could be a lot lighter, as well as you darkest dark could be darker.



Next comes saturation. I picked a few colours from your skintones. As you can see in the bars, they have pretty much the same level of saturation. You could add a lot more variety.



Here's a tutorial that might help you

[jatherip]

nice sketchbook! you have some damn sweet faces in here!
keep practising!

[Katanasoul]

I am back again!
Again spent time at my grandparent´s and visited Leipzig for the WGT. I did lots of comic work these days, but also practiced a bit. I am trying to become faster, so I did not add lots of detail.

Some trainpeople first.
When I lowered the size, it became a little blurry... Is there a way to avoid that?



A negative space drawing and a five-minutes-silkflower.
For those who haven´t heard of negative space drawing before: You try to not to draw an object itself but the surrounding empty space. It´s lots of fun to do and helps concentrating on drawing what you really see and not what you think you do.



This is my grandfather on the sofa watching TV. I love him, he is a very nice person.