Boriol's Sketchbook

[krysjez]

re featheredface's comment: soft brushes are not all evil, but you should use them with care.

rocks: continue to think in terms of planes and forms instead of blobs of color. I know you are probably trying to do that already.

keep it up, don't get too depressed. when you get really bored of studies do something fun that you enjoy - even if it's not really creative or artistically awesome - and apply what you have learnt so far.

there are many people here who understand what you are going through.

[Boriol]

Meh. I started to get discouraged when I realized that I had such a long way to go, even after three years. So I went and drew one of my OCs and then I felt better. I'm not one of those emo artists, but, like anyone else who's human, I get lazy at times. I can only break that by watching a good anime (lame, I know), usually Shana or Higurashi, then drawing another anime character or two (crap. That's exactly what I was trying NOT to do while coming here).

I'm such a kid.

1. Miri Myacida, my character from a long time ago who I'm using in a cheap custom-made RPG now. Piano prodigy with really long hair.

[dsacc]

Dude, kick out that anime. Tell it to pack it's bags and leave! Not to be rude but if you continue drawing anime it is almost guaranteed to get you nowhere. Look at realism, sure you can make the faces slightly cartoony but if you continue with the giant eyes, oversized triangle heads and pointy hair you will just be held back. That's my tuppence.

[Boriol]

Yeah, I know. This is the first time I've done anime in quite awhile, actually. I just do it a bit so that I don't get bored or discouraged. I enjoy drawing anime, but realism or semirealism will sell better, and will benefit me more in the end. I know exactly what you mean, because anime works its way into my realism--especially the eyes--all the time. But it's been getting better recently. I'm not posting all my gesture drawings--at least not until I do a few worth posting.

It may not be anime I enjoy so much as drawing people who look good. Anime is the fastest way to do that, and I think I realized that three years ago. But a semirealistic approach, such as Jason Chan's, is what I'm aiming at now.

Thanks for the advice, Dsacc.

[dsacc]

I know exactly what you mean, because anime works its way into my realism--especially the eyes--all the time. But it's been getting better recently.

I totally understand, I used to draw anime and it didn't help. I love the way we talk about it like its a disease. Also, it is a common misconception that drawing anime is the best way to draw pretty/good looking characters. This is untrue, no matter how rubbish someone is at drawing faces, if they avoid other cartoony/"attractive" styles their faces will blossom into something beautiful that will make their old anime drawings look ugly as sin. Oh, and even if you have drawings you think arent that good, you should definitely submit them as people will be able to give you criticizm that can make you improve drastically.
Good luck!

[shiNIN]

Hello I understand much about what you said. Even the "anime soothes me" part, I use Fruits Basket for that, I don't know why, I can criticize it so much but still it has values. Whatever.

I don't think anime style is the easy way to draw something good looking. Some cartoony styles - and even some realistic faces/bodies are much easier to draw than normal ones, there are some very expressive and totally not subtle things that work and very hard to miss... Subtle things are very hard to copy, at least for me, be it realistic or anime. Well, anime is harder because there are much less stuff to copy, I have to do it exactly right.
Maybe you can fool weaker eyes but not the ones of my talented and skilled inner critic. If someone is a beginner who knows nothing about anatomy, it SHOWS and that person draws crap in anime style.
Realism helps more. Anime is the end result of stylization, you can't trace back if you don't know a lot about anatomy, lighting, perspective or stuff. You put this line here and that there... Even if you copy, you either have to be a xerox machine (maybe you can be somewhat sloppy - but you need good luck not to ruin everything with that) - or know very well what are you doing and that barely recognizable tiny wavering of line on the boy's arm is the brachioradialis. I'm pretty sure the anime I consider damn well drawn were drawed by people with very very good skills at anatomy... Those aren't random little lines and shadows, those are distilled knowledge.
Many anime is badly drawn though. And bending anatomy for the sake of style is another thing. But muscles should remain the same, even if the proportions changes.

I personally never was into the big eyed cute kid style face... in my drawings the sharp nosed feminine pretty boy attitude is present Nowadays not so much. Realism always seemed somehow easier and better to me. The world is my reference And I love details. And can't draw clean. I don't want to make my life harder just to reach a less good result. Realism and semi realism suits me and I prefer the more realistic stylized style Not the 'two big eyes are glued into a cardboard' thing.
Chibi style is different, that's crack and fun and harder than realism to me, I want to master it for childish pictures I approach drawing chibis with more knowledge than my old "realistic" faces. Just because I can't use a part of my anatomy knowledge, there are room for the rest
Erm sorry I wrote about me *sigh* But at least I will never try to talk you off anime.
But as I said, you see the end result (and intentionally bended anatomy) even if you use a well drawn anime... It make things harder. Sometimes easier as well, it simplify stuff and I noticed anime creators may be bad at anatomy sometimes but they are usually okay with colors, real people are worse if we consider their clothes
But even if you don't abandon anime, you need to use other sources. Life drawing is extremely useful, you may have the greatest photo, a real model is much better, incredible how much more information is there a photo can't provide (well real life is 3d, huge resolation and colors are more rarely messed up and it can helped if they are).

Some silly drawing to keep your spirits high is understandable.
It's a problem if you put it there because I will tear apart it and others will look at you with a worrying face, mumbling about this poor boy who's in danger...

I'm not found of your character and it's not just her huge eyes, I saw huge eyed stuff and shrieked "cutie!" - well, that takes skills, I'm not easy to please.
The body shows you aren't new with drawing humans, there are some confidence and some parts are kinda nice. But there are some inconfidence there as well and I'm sure some muscle studies would do good for your arms and legs.
Even the not bad but far from perfect and rushed bodies (we need much more clean lines here, show me where exactly are her outlines) get ruined by the faces.
That's what I dislike about chibis... You place the features a tiny bit differently and the oozing with cute girl gets a dull silly look. After some redrawing I go nuts and draw a way better realistic face sketch in 3 minutes... Oh, sorry.

Gestures: the sitting figure looks like you are forced to draw her and you spent no effort on it at all. Maybe you did, by the way I think this kind of poses (kneeling profile view) looks like easy but they are hard, at least to me who can't draw bodies yet. An impressive contrapost is so much easier.
Bottom left figure shows the most. Boring kinda symmetric front view pose but one draws that sometimes. She has a tube torso without a hip, I never know where's her crotch with these clothes so let's forget about it now but I guess it's too low here...

Give me a less vague drawing and I will find much more issues.
{I'm sorry my inner critic leveled up again lately. I consider to stop being in Critique Center, I'm afraid I trample on people's feeling even if I don't want that}
If I have more information, I can spot recurring flaws and give advices. Just to provide a list of flaws isn't my goal, that isn't helpful enough.

[My57]

anime is not a horrible style to learn. However it is bad to only know how to draw Anime. Any style to learn for an artist is good as it broadens their skills and increases the chance that they can find a job. That's my personal philosophy anyways.

I can't draw anime for shit. Well from my head. I can draw it if I copy it. Otherwise its like a 10 year old doodle or something and it's embarrassing XD ^which is my argument to shiNIN, anime is not easy for me to do from my head. Really easy to copy but I can't do any characters from my head T.T

So ya. Do other styles, realism or something. Don't limit yourself to one thing.

Just keep doing anatomy studies, face studies, photo studies and the so on and you'll improve fine.

[shiNIN]

My57: I think I said anime isn't easy to draw well, one need to be able to draw realistically to begin with (at least bodies) I like your personal phylosophy btw

[Boriol]

I don't think I'll ever drop anime, unless I have some kinda huge shift in preferences when I turn 17. I just want to make it better AND be able to do realism . . . well, realistically.

Those little cutesy girls I do? THAT is just my preferences. I don't expect anyone else to approve of them. Why I posted it here, I dunno.

@Shinin - Harsh critiques are fine by me. I won't get better by people saying, "The foot sucks." or something equally unhelpful. Critiques like yours are the real helpful ones.

1. One drawing again. Just some figure drawings and such, half from imagination, half from Loomis reference.

[shiNIN]

The man in the left bottom corner and the other man head next to it... I like them. I can't criticize them, I would need more detailed faces for that These sketches are good, the faces have character. I don't know why but even if your preferences are big eyed anime girls, you have some idea how a human face looks like. At least from the easiest angles but I saw many who messed up even those epically for a long time.
I'd really love to see a bit more detailed faces I hope you will draw some soon.

[My57]

Sorry shiNIN you type a lot so I don't read everything XD - Im a bit of a skim reader

For my crit I would just say that you need to do more than that - Try putting in 2 -3 hours a day or so if you can. Get through the pain so you can create awesome images.

[Boriol]

@Medusoid - My problem isn't school or work or whatever other excuse some people use. I'm just lazy, and 2 hours a day is hard for me. Contradicting that, I want to practice as much as possible, but when I sit down to draw, I always wander off to some music or something like that.

@Shinin - I was gonna do more faces, but all the ones I did turned out really bad. I'll upload the next one I do no matter how sucky it is.

And here's a lady in a yukata-ish thing that's probably too small for her. I didn't have an eraser. *From imagination again

EDIT: Didn't upload the first time for some reason.

[klortho]

If you're really looking to improve, I would suggest dividing your art time between very traditional, academic drawing study and finished illustrations/personal work/etc in your manga or other style preference. I do this myself, but with more comic book-ish stuff rather than manga.

[shiNIN]

Yay you updated!
The face isn't realistically proportioned (too big eyes, tiny mouth and so on, her face is childlike but even a child has smaller eyes)
Her right arm is a bit too long.
Human legs don't look like this. The curves of the shin is reversed, from the front the outer side is more curvy. The knees should look into the same direction than the feet (we can do make some difference but it's not so much and not natural).
Again, it's quite visible you have some experience at figure drawing, her body isn't all bad
{I'm a critic. Don't expect sugary comments from me sorry. Except if you are lucky enough to hit me at the right spot, I'm the enthusiastic type if something is to my liking, no matter how simple and effortless it is}

[kiwigarbage]

Hey there, I know a lot of people have criticized you for drawing anime, but I don't think you've said what your goals are here, outside of saying that you want to improve the style you are currently drawing.

So I withhold any judgment of your approach.

Anatomy issues have already been covered, you know you need to practice

Something I think you would benefit from immensely, if you're going to continue to draw in manga style, is to get a good set of pens, and try to imitate the way that manga artists draw. It's the finesse and elegance of their line that makes the work beautiful.

So do some research, go to the book store and look at the most beautiful and successful comics, log it in your mind, or bring it home and copy it.

It's all about your goals, do what you think is going to get you where you want to go, not where someone else wants to go.

[Boriol]

@Klortho - Good idea. I've tried that a few different times, but it would help a lot more now that I've gotten out of the primarily manga-based mindset.

@Shinin - I don't need sugary comments. I had enough of those back on Mangatutorials (my previous forum). I need improvement. And your critiques help a lot. Sugary comments are nice, I guess, but they don't make me a better artist. They DO motivate me, though. I like it when people like the things I draw.

@Kiwi - My goals . . . I'm not entirely sure of myself. At one point, I wanted to be the best manga artist in America, but now I don't know anymore. It's that insecurity that makes me update once a week instead of the once or twice per day I was doing back on Mangatutorials. Back then I was clear about my goals and now I feel like I'm just starting--all over again. Technically, I am.

1. Perspective doodles from art class. Oh, and a face-ish thing that I didn't finish.

2. More anime. Yes, I know they're horribly skewed and everything else.

3. More from art class. I fail at big scenes like that.

4. Gestures. They're pretty bad, though I sorta liked the one with the text by it.

[Boriol]

Another stab at a human face (from imagination). It'll be awhile before I can intentionally whip a pretty face out from imagination--or even from observation, for that matter.

It wasn't really intended to be photorealistic. Mainly grayscale shading practice.

[dsacc]

Hello again. Don't start using computer software, you should only start when you feel completely comfortable with pencil and paper. Also, STOP DOING ANIME! My gosh so many people have told you but you keep ignoring them and that will get you nowhere! I saw your yutaka lady and although you may think its not great it is so much more beautiful than your anime people!
Just keep practicing realism and use references and you will be almost there! I am begging you to ditch the anime.

[Boriol]

I'm not ignoring those people who say not to draw anime. Usually I would draw about 2-3 anime pictures per day and post one on a forum, but now I find that I draw maybe 1 anime picture per week. That sounds good at first, but also considering that I only draw two or three actual pictures per week in that case, it's not that good.

In summary, while trying to cut out manga, I ended up drawing a lot less.

Drawing things that I enjoy makes art more than a chore for me. If I drop manga altogether, I won't enjoy art anymore and therefore won't draw anything. I could be wrong, but I think I'm not doing near enough studies, and THAT is more of a problem than drawing manga. Because I'm in the mindset of "I need to stop drawing manga," I'm losing my drive to draw.

It won't be that way forever. I just need to use manga as a transition to the point when I like the semirealistic stuff I'm producing. And as of now, I hate almost every semirealistic picture I've ever drawn.

[in2eternity]

Good studies here, sure you're on the right way! I'd suggest to not forget about anatomy books, such as Loomis and Bridgman, and also I find Vilppu's lections super great. So keep posting )

[shiNIN]

Drawing things that I enjoy makes art more than a chore for me. If I drop manga altogether, I won't enjoy art anymore and therefore won't draw anything. I could be wrong, but I think I'm not doing near enough studies, and THAT is more of a problem than drawing manga.

This part of you is almost me... I know this very much. You shouldn't cut your "fun force" out of your life but you see it without me saying a word about it.
I don't say others are wrong, it's just we all are different and some people go against the "wise but not for everyone" advices.

Your last update... I don't want to criticize it, I see huge flaws everywhere, I'm very critical about faces But I will do it anyway, it runs in my blood...
The usual thing, too big eyes, undefined nose, a bit small mouth...
It's too messy to really see some parts... You know a few things about faces, it's obvious... but you need to use more details on the features if you wish to draw realistically. Face planes are important, I neglected them for years and it affects shading.
Now and then it's good to draw a head from imagination but you need to do study features more before your imaginary heads start to be good.
Human faces are damn hard to draw, I drew one the other day and I feel I have no idea about them...
I agree with the others about using pencils... you can overpaint some of your traditional faces if you feel the need

Keep it up!

[Klaus Reinbach III]

Yoh =)

Reading this thread is like looking at me. We try to reach somehow the same goal you know. Loving Anime style and wanting to improve it through basic knowledge. That what I aim for too, and trying out a lot is really helpfull for it. You can take what ever you need and mixing your own style out of it.

Your anime style drawings are fine so far thats right. For painting I can say just do it more and more. In my case when I started with painting I feared it, just doing outlines and solid color, that what all was about, but how to start a painting? But doing it more and more, in different ways, from outlines, without outlines, block in big color shapes, starting with round soft brushes and so on. For painting there are so much different ways and it is fun to test them out =).
What me really helped on it was watching Videos on how someone drawed or watching other people drawing or study their studys so you can see how they approach it.

For basics, their is so much helpfull stuff on this forum, you probably can find everything you need while browsing through it. =) You should do it. Lot to learn on anatomy, form, space, hue, conception.

XD Posemaniac, you can use the slower option, or a more easier form like stickfigures or just lines to catch the flow of the body. If you then get faster over time, you can refine it to more complexity.

Have fun!

[cgaddict]

Nice work here, I recommend giving those anatomy books some serious studies as well.

[Boriol]

@in2eternity - I have all Loomis's books, but I haven't got everything from them drawn yet. I'll check out the other two. Some artists are easier to draw from than others.

@Shinin - That face . . . yeah. I hated it too.

@Klaus - I have the same thing you used to. I have some kind of fear of coloring--but you're right. The more I do it. The easier it gets (and less frustrating).

@CGAddict - At some point, I'm gonna go home and copy every last picture in Loomis's books. Just a matter of getting the time for it now . . .

--

1. Poses. From observation.
2. Planes of the face. From observation.
3. Some woman from Pixelovely and a face from DA. Observation.
4. Doodles in Chemistry class. Observation.

[shiNIN]

I didn't hate that face, it's just there's flaws everywhere
What I hate, that's some faces I drew (and I find every one I ever drew very flawy and I'm kinda right but it doesn't feel good ).

Well, continue doing these studies Take your time, we both need patience and practice if we wish to draw wonderful faces from any angle. It's not easy.
I don't wish to hint these would be bad, I would say they are a bit too sketchy to my liking, you often use a few uncertrain strokes only... The face plane studies are way better what I do, be it Loomis or Kevin Chen (I always mess up my Loomis head studies for some reason. Loomis isn't really one of my favs but has some very useful and clear stuff, I love Bridgman, Kevin Chen and Vilppu).
When you shade, use your knowledge about the planes of the face.

The last pic... the skull in the bottom left corner has perspective issues (bottom, teeth and eye sockets - they tells very different perspective to me).
The head in the top has no jaws just like some anime heads... The ear is too much to the front as well and I don't want to say nasty things about eyes. Every beginner is bad with eyes. For example, me, I need to correct them all the time if I don't use a front view.

Tell me if I should shut up... You need practice and I need to do that as well, instead of criticizing everyone and their dogs.
But shout if you do your best with a head and really want to know what's wrong, I love doing overpaints And I'm ready to look at photos for hours to be sure I do it well. Just no extreme angles, I'm bad with those.

[edit]
I have my honest critic day. I told someone who gets praises and draws a lot but his improvement is tiny my opinion I hold back for years too, so...

I have to disagree with Klaus Reinbach III, well, "fine" is relative and subjective...
I don't think your anime/manga style drawings are good. They aren't clean and that style needs that very much. Your line quality isn't good to begin with. And if you can't draw realistically well, you can't draw anime well. Perspective, lighting, anatomy, whatever you need to be good at realism, you need at anime as well. You more or less can get away without much knowledge about the face because they are totally different in anime and anime often don't have a defined light source, just some aesthetical fake shading but even that shows some form and muscles...
I always said you have a knowledge about human anatomy, both body and face, you can build upon it, but it's still a long way to go.

I will be more gentle next time (you aren't among the ones I know I can be whatever harsh I want) and I hope I didn't make much harm...
{if you have more selves inside you, it's very bad if they have clashing personalities... OTL}

[Boriol]

I don't take any offense or whatever from harsh critiques. I'm passive-aggressive, but much more passive by nature. I admit it's just slightly discouraging, but the amount of helpfulness overrides that.

I almost never finalize my anime. Most of the anime drawings I do (by most, I mean 99%) never make it past the sketch stage. If I took some time on them, I assure you they would look a lot cleaner. As of the middle of January, I've started working on line economy, a skill I'd neglected for years.

Actually, here's an older picture (January 8, I think). It was the first time I tried to make clean pencil lines. By the way, don't critique anything but the line economy. I already know 95% of the flaws otherwise.

[shiNIN]

Yep, these are much cleaner. I though about it myself that your quality is a result of the fact they are just basic sketches. I don't really mind messyness when you draw figures though Somehow that makes more sense there, maybe it's just me.
{It must feel great when you are so good that your first sketches are awesome... I so totally want to reach that level...}
Cleanness was always my weak point. Well I don't mind if I will be able to draw in an artistic messy way But I speak about me again.
I don't know if you should focus on clean lines... Line quality comes with time - and knowledge helps a lot of course, because if you are uncertain, you won't draw confident, quick strokes at the right place...

Well, keep the good work up and don't be discouraged, your works always have good points but it's more useful to tell the bad ones. I always try to say nice and true things as well, but if I don't do it, there are still there. You won't do very amateurish human figures and faces anymore, you aren't a complete beginner at that. But you can still improve quickly (not quickly enough, I know, I wanna be so much better already too).
I'd love to see you to get better and better. Even if I can't have good comforting words.
Best wishes ~

[Klaus Reinbach III]

I have to disagree with Klaus Reinbach III, well, "fine" is relative and subjective...
I don't think your anime/manga style drawings are good. They aren't clean and that style needs that very much. Your line quality isn't good to begin with. And if you can't draw realistically well, you can't draw anime well. Perspective, lighting, anatomy, whatever you need to be good at realism, you need at anime as well. You more or less can get away without much knowledge about the face because they are totally different in anime and anime often don't have a defined light source, just some aesthetical fake shading but even that shows some form and muscles...
I always said you have a knowledge about human anatomy, both body and face, you can build upon it, but it's still a long way to go.

I absolut second what you say and what you said over the whole thread too.
Probably we both understand something different for fine. For me fine is like mmmh fine XD. That means there is plenty room for improvement. I just doesn't wanted to write all what you did already =) And I must say you did a really good work here in this thread!

Boriol here a little timetable meme from me for you.
http://dreamanime.de/zl/impro.jpg
It's probably the average "realistic" drawing I could pull of to this time, from 2009 till now. Like you can see everyone starts with this weird faces =), even probably the best artists here, who says he doesn't does not have their first paintings when they started to paint. I have every junk I ever drawed.
You can see 2 years, and if you invest lot of time even much faster =).

And you should do everything shiNIN says, I read nearly every comment here from him, and he says so much truth, you could not wish for a better critique and hints what to do =).

Here a hint from me (what I read some years ago here in this forum somewhere), give not up in the middel! Allways try to finish a picture, regardless on how worse it look or if it even looks like it would made god and children cry and plants wither. Cause when you have serious problems doing something, that is the time where you start to learn new things! There is no wrong in art, just lot of places for improvement =).

[dsacc]

Okay, I'm just going to be blunt here. If you find drawing in different styles 'a chore' youre really not going anywhere towards being a professional artist. If you want to make it pro, you have to open your mind to more aspects. I'm pretty sure CA is full of artists who draw and study their asses off, not just because they have to and it's a chore but because they want to. If youre just going to draw anime and see the rest as a liabilty you really arent going to make it. I'm sorry to say that but it's the truth, there are a million and one different anime 'artists' in the world and there are going to be lots who draw just like you, if you stick to anime no one is going to want someone whos style is unoriginal and uninspired whereas with other styles eg. realism, there are so many different ways things can be looked at and translated across.
Saying 'Oh its okay, I only do 2 to 3 anime drawings a week' isnt good enough. You still are going to get nowhere, you are still drawing anime in the same mindnumbing schedule. Minimum change = minimum improvement (well, in most cases).
In other words, most cases result in anime being the death of their careers, professional and casual. That's my 2 cents.

[shiNIN]

Klaus Reinbach III:
Oh my god, I'm okay what I do in Critique Center as a critic but here I just say much blurb with good intension but in a messy way, out of true sympathy for Boriol (and due to my strong critical nature) Thanks.
I like to look back myself (and have all my paper SBs in my place ). In my SB I have some big Tegaki E "pages" with many little pics, the oldest and newest ones are 2 years apart... One just had to keep in mind I bought a huge tablet meantime... But I have quick crap and way better motivated many hours' pic from the same day... Copyworks are different too... Sometimes I draw the same character a year later. Till recently, I didn't fully realize how extremely cartoony my old Tegaki faces were... But I'm carried away again.
And my biological gender is female but it's not important, you may use whatever pronoun you want, too bad English has genders, my language has no such distinction. I consider myself an androgyn, that's why I didn't set it to any of the two. But my self critic is a male so I guess he is okay here, I just don't want to deceive anyone (I don't consider me a plural person whatever they are called, I just have a critical self who is more and more different than my other selves).
Looking at your stuff, nice progress

Always finishing pictures... I couldn't do it. When I see it's bad, I often don't want to wate my time on it. Well it kills the chance to finish it, me being a hedonist, no matter if that would be right or not...
But one should finish some pictures if not all and when I look at Boriol's drawings, I usually feel he didn't take his time and it would be better if he had done. Even studies need some more care.

dsacc:
I don't have enough information to tell how much truth is in your words. I agree about the part that one can't go far with drawing as a troublesome chore.
But I struggled with drawing for years, being pretty good at avoiding that no matter how much free time I had. Well, after I warmed up (much time every day), I usually enjoyed drawing and anime or realism meant no difference, except that I love realistic heads more.
Considering some basically enjoyable thing a chore - many thing can cause it. In my case: dark times, tiredness, no self discipline and bad habits, not nice enough results for my critical self...
I don't think there isn't hope for Boriol (and me) at all. Not without big changes but we are able to change I'm sure.