Sep '18

Hey everyone. I am an amateur artist with aspirations to one day make a living off my art. I recently received a wacom tablet as a gift and would love to share my art and hear what the community has of pointers and advice to bring the most out of my work. Keep in mind I have never used a tablet or worked in photoshop before so these will be my first ever digital works! Exciting! Thanks!

cedricgoModerator
Sep '18

Hello yassine45, welcome to the forums!

So you said this was your first digital piece, but do you previous experience with traditionnal medias? I ask because for a first try that looks pretty good, much better than what I did when I first started to work digitally XD

Good job and keep it up!

Sep '18

I have been drawing with pencil and paper since I was a child. I am most comfortable drawing line art and shading so I would say I have an okay grasp of values. But I almost never use colors... maybe because its too messy irl. using photoshop for the first time I thought I would take advantage of the colors. Thanks so much for the feedback! Anything worth noting to advance my skills?

cedricgoModerator
Sep '18

I see, that make sense. As for feedback, I may be wrong, but I feel that the thigh is a bit too long. Fortunately, it's not too hard to correct in Photoshop :smile:

Beyond that, I think you could add more colors to your shadows. With what you have already adding green in the planes facing the ground and blues to those facing upward could help unify the painting some more.

That's all I can think of right now, so I hope this helps!

Sep '18

Thanks so much for that feedback... I think you might be right about the leg hehe... also pushing the foot back a little. I love how the highlights from the bounce light bring it out so much more. Thanks man! I will keep em coming!

cedricgoModerator
Oct '18

You're welcome! I'd also like to recommend one book that could possibly help you. It's Color and Light by James Gurney. It covers a bunch of subjects linked to colors, about the way light works and how you can apply it to your painting.

Oct '18

Hey! Thanks for the book recommendation . It's officially on the christmas wish list. I am sharing my second piece now, would love to know what everyone thinks. Enjoy!

ninjagirl.png3840x3840 2.95 MB

cedricgoModerator
Oct '18

I really like those one line portraits. They look really clean.

As for your ninjagirl painting, once again it looks solid overall. I think that it may need a bit of work on the different materials though, as the skin and fabrics seems to be made of the same material. Maybe just adding a bit off texture to the fabric could help differentiate them a bit more. But otherwise, nice job!

Oct '18

Thanks @cedricgo ! The line art was very fun once I got the hang of it. I used egyptian, indian, and native american references. The far right one on the second row is actually my wife.
Thanks so much for the feedback on the ninja girl. I am actually working on it now trying to add folds, wrinkles etc... Do you think I should try a different brush to give it a different texture? Or is there another trick you suggest? I almost exclusively use the standard round soft brush.... Thanks again!

cedricgoModerator
Oct '18

I actually don'T know if I'm the right person to help you for that XD My work tends to be rendered in a rougher way than you, so it's easier to ''fake'' the different materials's texure, if that make sense. Your work is rendered much more carefully, so I'm not completely sure how to tackle this problem.

With that said, I'd definitely try differents brushes with a little bit of texture just to see how that works. I know a lot of people recommend using a single brush as much as possible, but coming from a traditional background, I find Photoshop brushes pretty limited. You have a wide range of strokes and texture that can be made using a single brush in real life, but that you can't really do with only single digital brush. So don't go crazy by using dozens of different brushes, but a having a few different ones to chose from could potentially help.

Another idea may be to simply draw/paint the different textures on a different layer on top of everything and drop the opacity so that we see a difference in the textures, but that it's not too overbearing. Does that makes sense?

Hopefully that helps you in some way :smile:

Oct '18

Great feedback dude. I tried a bunch of different brushes and couldnt find anything i like that much. I will be trying to do the second approach, and see if I can overlay the texture on another layer. Thanks a bunch!
In the meantime, thought I would share some super old drawings from high school I came accross while looking for an old unfinished character. Enjoy!

hands.png4800x3200 2.75 MB

cedricgoModerator
Oct '18

I'm glad I was helpful :smile:

And man those hands looks really nice! I get the reason now why your digital work is already at a good level even though it's something new for you. My highschool drawings never even came close to being that good XD

Oct '18

Thanks for the kind words! Im still working on the ninja girl piece, its coming along. I thought I would take a break a do a few sketches. I think I might end up taking these forward... Any advice is much appreciated as always. Enjoy!

ivar.png4500x3000 2.74 MB