Xanath's poop wall - watch it grow higher

[Xanath]

Heya! My name is Anton, I'm 24 years old and I'm currently studying game development at the university of Skövde in Sweden. Been drawing for a while without any real direction, but then I layed eyes on some really crisp digital art from you people out there.
When my brain reacted to the awesomeness of these works it generated what can best be described as inspiration, I wanted to find means to make me a better artist! (and I still do!)
So I got meself a tablet and started drawing and painting more frequently.

Bored yet? hmm.. Maybe I'll just dump some god damned pics and we'll see where this goes!

Wouldn't mind some comments and critique of course. XD

[Xanath]

Here's another WIP of the slain monster and some portraits:
Laurence Fishburne and Ziyi Zhang. Did the monster with opacity set to pen pressure, a new way of working for me. Still feels a bit odd, though it's a nice way to do bulky fleshy things. ^^
Throwing in two older pics i did too, a protoss doodle and Alex Mercer from Prototype, wrong clothes on the poor bastard though.

[Xanath]

Here's some more character pictures. A pig demon and a satyr that's mildly inspired by the movie Pan's labyrinth Never got his left arm right though, looks a bit rigid and unnatural. Feel free to criticize!

[Aslan_87]

Ey bro, you need to define your work more insted of only using your soft brushes, it gets kind of blurred.

And try to have a bigger value change so you define you details because you will get more out of your idees.

EX, in the picture whit the pans labyrinth guy you only work whit gray, try to add more ligth and shadow (black and whit) to make it more interesting.

But you do have good idees =).

[Aslan_87]

Ey bro, you need to define your work more insted of only using your soft brushes, it gets kind of blurred.

And try to have a bigger value change so you define you details because you will get more out of your idees.

EX, in the picture whit the pans labyrinth guy you only work whit gray, try to add more ligth and shadow (black and whit) to make it more interesting.

But you do have good idees =).

[Xanath]

Arslan_87: We talked about this IRL. The blurriness in the pictures are more likely the result of my inexperience when it comes to digital drawing than soft brushes, Since I used the standard hard brush mostly. I'm very careful with the values since I want to get a somewhat realistic style. Will try to add more contrast to future pics though

Some more updates. "finsihed" versions of the satyr and the space slug thingy featuring a crappy marine. Tried experimenting with different techniques. The slug was made with opacity set to pen pressure and the satyr wasn't. Trying out to see what feels best.
Threw in some shitty excuses for backgrounds in both pics Just to have something there mostly.

Critique and tips regarding different ways of colouring would be most helpful if anyone out there would care to share some wisdom

[Krato]

study from reference traditionally learn human anatomy and stuff.. Think of it this way, you wont understand math until you start looking up formulas and understanding them thoroughly.. You cant just start doing math problems and expect them to be right without practice.

[Xanath]

Krato: Do you write this because you see any specific faults in anatomy I've made? Come to think of it, haven't really posted any drawings of humans. Right now I mostly want to learn how to color. Aw well, Gonna post some studies as soon as I revice my scanner Thanks for the critique!

[Xanath]

Two color studies from life. Like the tape and keyboard one, the other one is a bit flat.

[Xanath]

Some character sketches and a nerdy birthday warrior(almost a self"portrait" ) for my mom. Remember to leave a comment
More coming soon.

[Xanath]

Some hand doodles and some digital pics.

[jackpot_anjr90]

Good stuff so far! I think what would help you with your digital paintings is to actually follow the form with your strokes. Right now they're a bit spotted or muddy in most areas. Keep up the anatomy studies too. Look forward to more

[Xanath]

jackpot_anjr90: Thanks for the comment and critique the "spotted" effect is me failing at creating a sense of texture with my strokes. Guess I have to think more about what I'm actually rendering, if it's warty monster flesh or kind of smooth human skin.

Here's more stuff. Two concepts from a game I worked with at school and a wip of some monster.

[victorhogan]

I liked the soldier you did up there. The one with the white beard. That is one of your best work.

[Xanath]

victorhogan: Thanks! He could use a bit more rendering and some smoother skin, but thanks anyhow

Here's some scanned doodles.

[Wilko]

Good stuff so far! Hard to give critique as I'm relatively new to digital painting myself. I'd suggest doing some studies form artists you admire - particularly colourful images, try and emulate their painting style, study their brush strokes and colour choices and you will quickly learn new techniques that you can apply to your own work.

[Xanath]

Wilko: thanks for the critique That is really something I should do. Take a deeper look at an awesome artist while I'm drawing.

A warrior that kinda looks like Tika Waylan from the Dragonlance series and some sketches. Tried to follow to shapes a bit more with my strokes and still crete some texture. This is not really the style I want to have so I think I'm really gonna take Wilko's advice and study some of my favorite artists more intensely

[korpehn]

Nice pose och sköna färger. Lite mer crisp hade dock inte skadat! Gött att se att du postar igen. Keep at it!

[Xanath]

Korpehn: Tackar. Bara att fortsätta posta vettu Ska komma ihåg att kolla din sketchbok med med jämna mellanrum.

This time I tried looking deeper at Kekai Kotaki and Cole "Poopface" Eastburn (two of my favorite artists) while I painted. Turned out much better than the last one IMO. Gotta keep pushing it like this and learn to do it faster. Comments and critique appreciated as always!

[Xanath]

Some 3D stuff I did. A quick concept, a zbrush sculpt and a finished model with a rushed texture. Enjoy teh poop.

[Xanath]

A WIP of a cowboy character I'm currently sculpting in zbrush. He's gonna get a hat later on and not look quite as much as Patrick Stewart.

[Xanath]

Managed to overcome my lazyness when it comes to the scanner.. and liek.. scan something. Here's some doodle poop from school and train trips.

[krel]

Hey man, looks promising! Just clean up your values and read up on color, B&W. In most sketches one cant tell the lightsource, and things looks dirty partly becouse you use color in the wrong ways.

Keep em comin duder!

[nana_iro_miso]

nice work! I like the shading you put into your pencil work the best. I also appreciate that Tika Waylan pic since I'm a huge dragonlance fan myself (the cover art for the books are just great).
Just curious though, when start your figures, do you start with a basic wire frame of the skeleton or just just go into blocking out the various parts? That might explain why some of your figures do look a little unsteady (sometimes the legs are a tad stunted, or the face seems a bit small for the body). Starting with that wire frame might help keep proportions in mind when working on the figure.
your digital stuff is constantly getting better btw! keep working on those studies and I think you'll really keep improving =]

♥Nana

[Xanath]

krel: Thanks for the comment Color is kinda new to me so I'm definitely gonna do more color studies from now on. When I was younger I just drew, and got better that way... Gonna have to get used to identifying the problems and fixing ' em. Gonna pull my enormous thumb outta my arse so I'll be able to do some more studies from now on

nana_iro_miso: Thanks for stopping by! Gotta love Dragonlance Read the "Legens" parts also? The ones that focus on Raist and Caramon.
Hmm.. that depends on what I'm doing. If I'm doing quick doodles like many of my pencil works then I just do a very quick construction to get some shape in. When I'm doing something more time consuming I draw the character naked first to get some basic proportions, like in the Tika or the Bigass-warrior-with-a-sword pic. Never really do any detailed wire frames or such though. Gonna study more anatomy so hopefully I won't need to do wire-frames heh.

No more 2d art from me at the moment, preoccupied with some 3d work that's due soon. So here's another wip of the cowboy. He's going to get a bandana too I think and some texture. Then it's back to 2D!

[Xanath]

The finished cowboy and a study from a MMA photo. Gonna practice more colour, yeah. Took too much time to figure out what colours to use on this one.

[Xanath]

A doodle from mind. Maybe I'll colour this...maybe not.
Was going to be a speedie at first but a friend dropped the "honey..."-line and I just had to render it a bit more hehe.

"Don't want to see her perform a handjob" /Chillstrand

[Xanath]

A friend wanted me to paint him a somewhat realistic female guerilla soldier, so he gave me some guidelines. Did a 5 min scribbly line art sketch in order to trick him that that was going to be the final, sadly, he didn't buy it.. It was fun though.
The grayscale is a WIP of the real one. Time to get started on colours and background ^^

[Xanath]

One hour speedie. The dodging barbarian of the awkward arm tribe.

[Xanath]

Here's some studies and a skeleton-ish dude from mind.