Aug '20

Hi folks,
I'm a simple hobbyist who's always wanted to improve his art skills. My "creative" background was always in technical drawings for design and techology in school so I like precise measurements and straight lines based on reality.
I've always had difficulty straying from the "straight and narrow" as it were, and creating from imagination, so hopefully I'll get better at that.
The way I have approached any art project in the past is very mechanical, trying to work out how the tools work and problem solve in order to create the desired effect, but I feel I this is limiting me greatly.
Let's see how I fare with Art School. I'll post a couple of recent (pre-AS) pieces of work so that progress can be tracked as time goes by.
I really appreciate any interaction and feedback. My old hobby was dancing, but I can't really do that in the pandemic world, so here we go!

Aug '20

I'll post some recent splash art for gaming tournaments as well as some drawings below, as my pre-AS ability.

I mostly use Affinity Designer, Affinity Photo and Clip Studio Paint.

Tournament Splash Art

2018 Portrait Drawing

2020 Portrait Drawing

Sep '20

I think that before adding more details (like the hair or eyebrows) you should paint the best shading you can and then add the details. You should use reference images as well. Not trying to be mean or anything, I (and almost every artist) make or have made those mistakes at one point. So, keep working using reference images :wink:

10 days later

Sep '20

Thanks Lip3chi :smile:
I was using references for those 2 portraits... well.. I used the pictures that I was drawing haha. But I definitely need to get my eye in using wider references for sure!

I think part of what I like about digital art at the moment from a learner's perspective is the mechanical exploration as it were like the "What happens if I do this?" sort of approach.

27 days later

Oct '20

So I've been doing a bit more of Term 1 and have got about half way through poses and got to the results below.
Apologies, I used nude models as references before I saw the SFW rule restriction and so attempted to sfw-ify the references. Funnily enough using some techniques from T1's Photoshop section. Though there's 1 reference where I hadn't remember I could use those tools. Can you see which one? xD

From the references I think I'm getting the hang of it, but as you can see from the "Diff Screen" one at the bottom, I'm not quite getting things to line up right. I think I've got arms and legs down. But my head, torso and pelvis placements seem off. Has anyone got any tips or tricks?

...Also, my Wacom Cintiq seems to like freezing every so often and I can't work out why - the pen just doesn't respond for about 5-10 seconds. Has anyone else experienced this? I can't seem to work out what triggers it.

Thanks for stopping by!