I've decided to follow marucha's example and post my work in progress. This is my very first tablet drawing and I've spent about an hour on it so far. There's still lots of details to add in but I'm very happy with the result so far (it's my dog, Gandalf).

The pic looks great so far, and Gandalf is a cutie <3

I was gonna delete this and wait till you completed more, but here goes... umm my suggestion would have to be to zoom out every once in a while and see how it looks overall. For example, the gray hairs on the black fur look fine up close, but start to look weird when you zoom out. The bg fur shouldn't be totally black.

Sorry, I'm not used to giving tips (I'm just as noob as you lol XP).

Sharing work in progress, I like it :3 - Gonna do the same next time. I'd love you guys' help :)

So I've had time to work on my drawing last night and here I am now:

Bahahaha! Goddess! Yeah right :|.. there are better artists than me, I just take it very seriously and stay up to date and immerse myself as much as I can. You can learn a lot of stuff just by knowing the right places and where to go to... it's all good. That's why I shared the links in the OP. Look at CGhub or other CG sites out there... your head will spin, but some of those people only dedicate their lives to this stuff and spend maybe 9 hours a day practicing. It's insane. I have had a lot of practice in drawing from observation, so my strength is there... I am just beginning to really dive into certain things, like creating pieces from reference(s). You can't do everything from imagination, especially figures that are creative and dynamic, it's almost impossible without studying it over and over... but even then, you have to collect references before you start a composition to get a pose correct, paint the object correctly, etc.

I've stepped back from the forums a bit, so I hope people can forgive me a bit for neglecting this thread. I don't have unlimited amounts of time (I wish) and a lot of stuff keeping me busy... I also just drank some coffee, so if I miss something you wrote that was super important, please forgive me as it's probably the dyslexia from the coffee high.

If you guys want, I start a Ustream (live video feed) every once in a while when I paint, so if you wanted pointers for the actual painting process (in Photoshop anyway),  I could give you a brief tutorial... I can tell you that it was a bit of a learning curve for me because a lot of the tools and videos that are out there now weren't available then. Knowing what I do now, it's sooo much easier... and of course there are so many advantages to digital over traditional. But if you can't get a piece to look the way you want it to look anyway, then you will be very discouraged... I very much enjoy painting digitally so I don't mind sharing that information. It's cool <3

@TruckOSaurus Personally, I think the piece you're working on is off to a really good start. The block-in stage is really done well. You don't have much variety in your brush strokes so it's making it feel flatter. Could be you're also not sure about how to blend/rendering yet, so that's not helping you maintain a variety of edges (sharp versus blurry,etc) .

You have the right colors going as far as I can tell (which is more important) but I don't have the reference so I can't compare (not as important in this case).

I think you could boost the warm tones in the front and cooler towards the back to add depth... you will see it in real life (especially figures/objects) and then of course reflected light . Some color choices or how much you use this effect to boost the volume is totally preference and is up to you. It feels a little flat,  but part of it is the focus so close to the camera and then also there isn't enough colors on the edges farther from you (sides/back part of the dogs face) to suggest this is a 3D form. You could paint super badass fur textures, but if you don't have that color temperature shift and the shadows/form painted correctly, it will come off more like a design piece that is flattened versus a painting that is supposed to feel 3-dimensional. So you just have to think about what you can do to boost volume and interest... remember making art is about pulling off the illusion... it shouldn't resemble completely the photograph, otherwise what's the point. Think of how you can boost believability and use edges/color temperature shifts, etc to your advantage...

Look at some of the links I posted in the OP. A lot of them are very helpful... especialy the PSG Tutorial. Look at how they use saturated/warmer colors in the foreground and cooler colors in the background to effect emphasis and how your eye follows the forum... someone said this once and I think it's a good rule to follow... that normally your blackest blacks would be in the foreground and that in distance (mainly in atmospheric perspective/landscape pieces), these darkest blacks which would normally be full black close up, tend to fuzz out, cool off (like from atmospheric haze for example) the furthest they are away... you can add this effect in figures... and then also you have reflected light as well, and you can use that to suggest space... sometimes it's not as obvious in the reference and you may have to make some adjustments here and there for it to show up in your drawing/painting.

miz1q2w3e said: As promised, here's my drawing :) I'm pretty nooby so ALL feedback is welcome - This is my first for real drawing ever, besides when I first tried out my drawing pad. This took maybe four sessions to complete, each session around 2 hours. Thanks Marucha for making this thread :)

NOOB! Haha!

jk.......

This is a good start. The form feels a little fat in the cheek bone because there's no variation of hard edge versus soft. For example, up closer to underneath her eye, there should be probably the sharpest point because that's wehre the shadow is reflecting off ... and then also the cheek bone usually there is a sharper edge....  the sharpness of the iris and eyelids pull the attention away from the whole face. Usually you put down hard lines and then taper the edges/blend/fuzz details a bit farthest away from you to help... I'll paint over a bit since it's easier to explain. Also, the upper part of her eyelid is missing?... it depends on the model how much it shows, so you may need to put just a teeny eency hint of the highlight color... but something will connect you to the form there... you have to look at the model to see how much shows.

Sharpness in the edges where the light hits the forehead will depend on the how sharp/gradual the curvature of the skull is... usually at the highest part, it turns back sharper... and then sometimes there is a sharp-er-ness light on the part just above where the eyebrow starts because of the brow-bone being so prominent there.. how much sharpness depends on how much of a curvature and the model's bone structure underneath...  same with the prominence of the cheek. Just think of where those sharp edges and those fuzzier edges meet... usually it fuzzes more as it goes backwards into the distance. Some blurry edges are blurrier than others depending on where you decide to emphasize your focal point... what's facing the light and hits the curve immediately will produce the sharpest shadow and then it tapers off.

Her iris is really tiny, which suggests light should be actually in her eyes ... Your shadow work is off to a good start. It's just push the values (darkest darks, brightest brights)/edges a bit to describe the form better... again ,I'll paint over to show what I mean...

Also underneath eyelid you will sometimes be able to see the skinny part before the eyelash starts... I would imagine in this pose you could see some... and also, you will have a slight shadow over the iris/eye-y part... and then there be slight specular light in the cornea... and also reflection in iris.. .if the pupils are super small, usually means light blasting straight into the eyes? You will soemtimes see fine lines underneath the eye itself that are hairline wrinkles, or maybe also depending on the angle, you can see the skin-ish-part that folds around the eyeball itself. blah blah blah blah.

Skin is difficult, because it's a bit translucent (blood and guts and such underneath) and so you will see so many more patches of colors in the face than you would think would normally be there... especially if you have a person who has a tan or is flushed somewhat. Skintones are just complicated in general. They suck. That's why sometimes when I am working out a composition or solving a mystery of how to depict something, I will stick to black and white and not complicate it with color until I have values down right first... you can turn that to color, some people only strictly paint black and white first and then "repaint" in color without actually affecting the values underneath.

In the hair, there should be some 'brighter portions', like gradientt-ish highlights, shadows... a lot of that is just glazing.

But when I look at a reference, look for the little nuances that will help depict the form... it's not important to have every little detail, but definitely certain things you will emphasize .. like the closest part of the face that is facing the camera can be ultra sharp, but then the hair surrounding it going back may taper off and get whispy towards the end and it still looks beautiful/right. In portraiture, we don't recognize a face by the details as much. Generally, it's the shape/proportion of the form/contour of the head relative to the position of the main features (like position of eyes, nose, the shape of those forms and bone structure that do most of the work... details are just details...  you will be surprised how little information you can get away with using in a sketch to make a person recognizeable... that's why gestures are really helping you nail quality forms. It promotes looseness, but it also helps you make something mostly recognizeable with less marks/details.

I did a crap job on the hair, but I put some highlight and shadow just to show waht I mean by value boost. This is a wonderful composition.. I don't see a whole lot of problems with the anatomy (a big issue for most people, so that's good). Mainly it's just your edges and values you need to boost as well as to add some reflected light (look at the PSG tutorial in the OP)... learning how to use edges too can really boost your images and emphasize focal points in your work. Other minor detail, just be careful where you put black... black doesn't produce rich shadows, usually it's more often a complimentary color of some kind even like a dark dark dark brown that is maybe a little less saturated would be better for iris (though it's usually black honestly)... but it tends to turn somewhat brown in direct light... reflective light is as result of light bouncing off everything else

Wonderful piece :)

Best suggestion evar!

Actually, if you are using Photoshop Full version to paint, you can open an additional window that you can set to any zoom level you like. (I hate the stupid cheap ass looking Navigator). It's in Window > Arrange > New Window for xxx.psd.

You can keep it to the side and it'll update as you are working. So much easier than having to zoom out a lot. Especially if you have like 10 billion pictures you are working from on the screen to keep up with and don't own a secondary monitor...

You can embed it and it will shrink to the size of the thread wrapper. Of course it will take some time to download, but whatever, we have broadband lol...

I appreciate the design work you did in this piece. For me, it's hard to create 'chaotic' pieces that still have cohesive-ness. I am definitely more of a representational art kind of person and less a design-y vector-y person, but I am slowly getting better. I guess it shouldn't really matter as long as you understand composition, harmonies and such...

What exactly is this supposed to be? Resembles some website layouts I have seen for some reason, but I can tell it's 3-dimensional work that's supposed to be environment.

Thanks so much for the feedback. I'm at school so I can't read it right now, but I really appreciate it :)

and thanks for making this thread, you made me get off my lazy ass and draw something :B

The sad thing is that I never zoomed in while doing the drawing so I always had the whole picture in my screen.

Thanks for all these tips. I think I'll post the reference picture tonight to give you an idea of what I'm trying to reproduce.