Jan '21

I probably didn't do this right, but what I was aiming to do was get some art critique and see what brushes and guidelines you all would recommend to improve. Honestly I really didn't want to post here seeing so many talented artist and how good they are even the start of Marc Brunet Art School Journey. But I figured if I want to improve I need some criticism from the pros XD. I really hope to get some replies, trust me I know this is bad. Never done art in my whole life and barely started during Quarantine.
Please be Gentle :smile:

Jan '21

Hi what's up! I too have this fear but you are doing great for just getting your art out there. A simple question I have is I just want to know what is your goal in pursuing art (for example, to gain a certain style or job). This is to help gauge what tips to give you.

(Edit I'll give you some tips right now)

Currently the basic tips I'd give you are to deepen your knowledge of art. Specific courses for this are Visual Communications 1 and 2. Perspective 1 and 2 are also some other courses that I recommend watching in all of their detail.

Overall the courses are listed in order of skill level so go through it in order and you should see yourself improving.

Jan '21

Hey thanks for the response! (By the way really like that simple question you had.) What I always wanted to do was tell stories, I have so many written down but I feel I can't express them in words so I wanted to try by expressing them in drawings (In other words, Comics, Manga Style, Webtoons, Etc.)
But before doing that, I just wanted to get decent at drawing.
And yes I've been revisiting the perspective classes since I know that is one of my main flaws, among the Many others hahaha.
What I would love to know is, I checked your profile (And by the way you really are talented, love your greek studies there) I was curious how you did the gray scale? Or how you colored your drawings cause they look really good, sort of what I was trying to do in this one.

Jan '21

For the studies I paint with two values (light grey for light and dark grey for shadows). Using my reference image, I use the navigator or zoom out of my canvas and simplify what I see into two values and paint that.

The point of the studies is to make myself not zoom in and rely on seeing the bigger picture to paint the values. It's a problem that most people have where zooming in causes you to paint something that might not contribute to the overall painting. I don't make a drawing underneath (optional) since I'm essentially sculpting and having a guide would be a hindrance to the process. Though I did draw a bit for the Zeus study since his beard is so complex and didn't have the knowledge to render that.

For a simpler explanation, look at Sinix Design's beginner guide on digital painting on Youtube. He explains alot of the abstract ideas when he paints and how he suggest beginners to paint with the hard round brush: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Nt9fa8jZUE&t=438s

Even though it might not be in your range of vision, doing studies of real life objects and painting similar to the video is extremely beneficial to your art career and can help with many of the abstract fundamentals Marc describes in his course.

If you have any more questions please fire away.

Jan '21

Thanks so much for your replies. I really do appreciate the time you take to recommend and respond. It might be small but it really has been helpful to me. I watched the video you recommended and I got to say, I do see some improvement on how I paint my characters.
Hopefully you won't mind me asking you some further questions in the cute :smile:
Best of luck to you Friend, hope you do amazing in your art career