Risaki-chan's Digital WIPs

[Risaki-chan]

ok here i present some of my WiPs I will be grateful for some critics and advice
1) Bleeding Roses - fanart for "The Mentalist" i used only this two photos in the early stages of painting

and




2) Red tea - as a Bleeding Roses - mentalist fanart
reference


3)Wuthering Heights - no reference - fanart to Charlotte Bronte book also inspired by Kate Bush "wuthering heights" song



4) falconer, really early WIP no reference, slightly based on face of Chris Hemsworth (the actor who has been playing Thor )

If ypu notice that something is wrong/ could be better, have some tips or critic or just want to say what you think about it Do not hesitate !

[TinyBird]

Brrr, man those faces creep me out. They're all dead and empty. You try to copy the expressions and faces of the people in the photos, but there's no life or real form to the characters you paint and you smoothen out some of the planes and creases of the face which makes everything look even creepier and plastic-y.
Not to mention you only use refs for the faces, but everything else from the whole bodies to the hands are suffering from great anatomy mistakes.

EDIT: Also it's nice that you have patience to put lots of details, but you're overkilling your pics with unnecessary detail that distracts the eye and yet fails to convey the form, the guy's hair in the first image is a good example of this.

How much do you actually paint from real life objects?

[Risaki-chan]

thanks! It was a lil' rought but true
I have a problem with expressions and i know it. When i was younger i was attending art classes and drawing from nature but now i don't really have time for that and my surroundings aren't full of models unfortunately. So with little possibilities I'm trying to make it work ^^; But thanks for mentioning that i will try to work it out

[tobbA]

I think it's good that you're using reference. But as long as you're not taking the photos yourself I think you should be careful with using exact likenesses because of the legal side of things. It will also be more helpful for you to first sketch out how you want the image to look, pushing it as far as you're able to, and then find yourself a reference to correct with. It will give more life and creativity to your paintings.

[Risaki-chan]

thanks and I'm doing it (first drawing from imagination than correcting it with eventual refs) i haven't posted my first pic cause Janes face was terrible but here it is : this is how it looks before i used any

my my his face was soooo badd....

I took all advice to my heart and I'm now trying to make something more vibrant will post some wip soon
and here it is

i used camels photo as ref

[Calireayn]

Obligatory Andrew Loomis Link

I should just add it to my signature.

Get the book called Drawing the Head and Hands. Read it cover to cover and draw everything in there at least once. Then come back to this picture.

[tobbA]

Well. Maybe you do. But you still end up with a near portrait like version of your reference. Even the hair styles are the same. The above is good advice. Study the head and how to construct it, then use the refs to correct in stead of just copying. Using several references for the face is a good way to get a unique look.

Another thing you need to look at is color theory. Avoid black unless you're very confident in how to use it. It will flatten the image and make your colors muddy. Don't just make shadows a darker color of your base color. You will loose saturation in both light and shadow, and the color of the shadows will be affected by the ambient light that reaches them. So under a blue sky all planes in shadow facing upwards will trend towards blue, etc.

[Risaki-chan]

tobbA thanks!
I know what you mean i tried to be very close to reference because of the fact that i want the people (on painting) to look like this actors. But i know you're right.
About expressions here is some my older (finished) art i guess this one gives off some emotions and not skin-colour shades.
A Wila (or Rusalka,slavic mitology)

references :


but.. i will change Janes expression, now I'm studing Loomis book ( many thanks for Calireayn for link) I tried to sketch other expressions on Lisbon but i kind of like how she looks like now it was part of the plan to make her somehow emotionless. However i will think about her expression too. Maybe after reeding Loomis i will get some ideas

[Venger]

Can we lose the DA watermark, its really hard to comment with that covering up everything.

[Risaki-chan]

yep, of course, sorry about that


i made some loomis sketches


and come up with some sketch how i can change "Bleeding Roses"

[arenhaus]

The usual thing: stop copying photos, learn to understand what you are seeing. An artist doesn't copy the picture, he understands and interprets the form.

So study the basics. Structure, perspective, lighting, anatomy. Work in pencil, don't touch digital yet.

[Risaki-chan]

ok i understand ..... but guys for god's sake look at my other pictures too, only first two ( mentalist fanarts) are strongly referenced ("copied") from photos.. so maybe can you tell me some more about other my works?

[Bette]

Just keep drawing and practicing. I know its not specific to the drawings you are posting, but that is really what will help you improve right now.

[arenhaus]

ok i understand ..... but guys for god's sake look at my other pictures too, only first two ( mentalist fanarts) are strongly referenced ("copied") from photos.. so maybe can you tell me some more about other my works?

They all have the same problems with structure and lighting that can only be corrected by diligent, process-conscious practice of drawing structure and lighting.

No one can even do a good copy of a photo if he doesn't do it with a solid base in structure and lighting. So what you referenced does not matter if you simply aren't sufficiently aware of the structure.

[Risaki-chan]

HELLO!
long time no see/gear/write I'm very sorry i have a lot things on my head now,
I didn't have time to correct the bleeding roses but i present some new sketches
i tried to be more accurate with lighting ect and with emotions.
to draw "Onsen" and "Rusalka" i helped myself with Posemaniacs
Rusalka- Posemaniacs

Madame - no references

Onsen -Posemaniacs - semi-realistic-comic girl my OC
my hand moved while scanning and the top line is curvy
Come closer - no references

Mentalist
no references just looking at actors (watching episode) while drawing

[OmenSpirits]

The usual thing: stop copying photos, learn to understand what you are seeing. An artist doesn't copy the picture, he understands and interprets the form.

So study the basics. Structure, perspective, lighting, anatomy. Work in pencil, don't touch digital yet.

Jeff? Is that you?



Oh, and OP, do you draw on a flat table or on an angle? If you draw flat, STOP.

Draw at and angle and will help the distortion you have going with your heads.

[Risaki-chan]

i'm always trying to tilt my pad that i draw on a little but i don't have a desk that you can icline, unfortunatelly..
I will look at this matter more now, and maybe i will come with some solution.
OmenSpirits thanks

[Chris Sanders]

more studies. i agree with TB's first post. your a render-holic. I know because i was too. you just want to get the drawing and all that out of the way so you can get to the detail. my advice is to keep zoomed out so you cant see the details. Also start a drawing for fun.. gesture and big shapes... then when you are going to start the detail pass... delete it. it sounds like a cruel waste of time and effort. but it was the best advice i ever had. now i care less about fine details and getting really caught up in areas of my work and not having the guts to rework it.

I think you should stick to black and white... your colour work lacks depth and understanding of form and colour is just going to make it harder to learn how it works, so i would stick to greyscale.

[PuppyKitten]

Off-topic, but...

My bf worked on the set of The Mentalist for quite a while. He had some pretty frustrating stories about how unpleasant certain cast members were. Funny stuff (though it wasn't funny to him, at the time). I've never even seen the show, personally. I didn't know it had fan girls.

Anyway, I like your pencil stuff more than your digital stuff. I agree that you need to get the anatomy right before wasting so much time rendering. It's much easier to fix a wonky arm or deformed face when it's just a sketchy line than when it's fully rendered.

[Risaki-chan]

well reality is not a show, i know that, but i love show very much

Thanks, I will definitely work on making a anatomy better, is just that when i have a pic i can't help myself and i start making details! But i will try to change that

It's been a loong time since i drawn something with my tablet but recently i re-decovered my love for Diablo 2 and I've been playing a lot. I have a palladin Zealot on 5o lvl nightmare but i decided to start new with Necromant Summoner. I started only couple days ago but i'm now lvl 20 just before killing Duriel and I've been enyoing it very much, I must say Necromant Summoner is much more easy than palladin.
So this is my Necromant Dante
Work in progress
till now 1 h of work

I'm not good with drawing man but i'm trying my best


next progress

next progress was mainly on face so i'm just posting face , i made it more evil xD

[Grunler]

His head and neck are totally misaligned from his torso. Ever try looking at your drawings in a mirror? Or flipping them horizontally? Tells you a lot.

You should have listened to Chris! Patience! You've started in fiddling with the details of the face and outfit before you've even laid out the basic value structure of the entire figure. Pick up a bigger brush and work on the image all over, general to specific. You need to establish a single, definite light source. Cast shadows and everything. Do that first. Don't waste your time with a process you know is counter productive, and then take it to critique to get advice you already know.

One thing you should consider: Preliminary drawings. They're helpful for just about anyone, but you in particular could use it as an opportunity to get that narrow focus out of your system. Fill a few pages with drawings of armor, weapons, facial scars, etc. Work out the details to your heart's content. But work structurally when you get the final illustration.

[arenhaus]

Still all the same problems as before. Are you even listening?

[Risaki-chan]

I am belive me that I am but it's something that I practised since long ago and It really is not easy to get it out from me...
I'm doing some sketches now, trying to get your advices into live but i find it really hard not to go straight to details

sketches

from 7 to 9 with help from posemaniacs

[Juggertha]

It's good that you're going back to basics... but I see no harm in working on your paints along the way. Just remember, they're going to seem 'off' as long as you're fudging your structural understanding.

Good luck though - I see some good potential in your line work.

[Risaki-chan]

thanks some wips on "Brothers"


refs

[Candra H]

I'm sure a couple of people already mentioned this but I'm going to annoy you with it again in the hope it registers properly.

You really should be working on studying anatomy and the human figure because all the stuff you're posting in here shows a severe lack of knowledge about how the human body looks and behaves in three dimensions.

Study, study, study! And good luck!

[TinyBird]

I don't know if you're going for actor likeness in the image, but Thor's forehead/face angle looks off, giving him a pretty boyish look, compared to the actual character or the actor:


And with Loki, quick comparison between the image and the photo show that you've made his jaw and nose much larger, but to me a bigger problem is the angle of the eyes and lips, because you otherwise seem to follow the photo pretty straightly but then change those (though the angle of the lips is very faint and subtle, but its lacking in your image flattens it quite a bit)


It just feels that you didn't construct your faces properly and thus miss the angles and planes of the faces.

[Risaki-chan]

thanks TinyBird i actually noticed some of the mistakes you mentioned before and done some liquifying but your comment helped me a lot



Chow entry i'm trying to do theme is "Keymaster"

pose from posemianiacs

[Risaki-chan]

some other overwiew on Keymaster
pose on the left was from posemaniacs the back view was me imagining how it should look like


and next progress

[Risaki-chan]

i think i will change the "final" pose from sitting to standing

what do you think?