Daniel and Red Dragon

[scarletnocturne]

It seems I have had alot of people looking at my piece and I have gotten no comments. Is there a reason no one is commenting?

[Hobs]

needs more work, i usually spend spend 4 - 6 hours on a picture to get rid of any line art. suggest adding a layer over the top of this image, setting the blending mode to multiply and shade it up with tones of grey, have your brush set to darken and start with the lighter grey swatch working through to black. Looks like you can handle shading concepts so you should do well.
Then add another layer set its blending mode to screen and with bright colour and the brush set to normal add some highlights to the scales.

[Solhawk]

WooT! I love this peice. ^^ I love how you left the line work it gives it the anime look that the girl in the corner has. You did a beautiful job with the colouring and shading. Then again I am a sucker for black line work. Keep it up and when you get out of school someone is going to want you as a colourest to a comic...


~Solhawk

:bounce: :love:

Yes I am a little Hyper... Just a little... *Had a layer of choclate before she looked at this peice.*

[SmallPoly]

Heya. A couple quick things I can recommend --

When trying to figure out the shading, you need to know what direction is coming from. Any part of the character's body that is on the opposite side will be in shadow.

Also a couple for your friend -- when drawing anything it helps to use reference. I would also recommend that she study perspective. Also, I noticed on her site she's placed huge watermarks over everything. While that pretty much guarantees that no one could steal her work, it also ruins them to the point where no one would want to. She may want to consider finding a less obtrusive way to add them to her work.

Here's a quick sketch based on your painting to illustrate a couple of the things. I didn't apply any lighting though. (btw, if you want me to take down the link, just say so)--

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v394/rrimgeaper2/art/dragon3.jpg

Reference used:
Animal Anatomy textbook (muscle groups in torso adapted from horse anatomy)
http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/photos/santa_barbara_california/images/lizard.jpg
http://www.exzooberance.com/virtual%20zoo/they%20swim/crocodile/Crocodile%20471006.jpg
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/conker/weird-beasts/basilisk-lizard.jpg
http://www.collegiatepeaksoutfitters.com/images/sheep5.jpg (sheep for horns)
http://albums.laurenstravels.com/albums/album19/giraffe.jpg (giraffe for neck)
http://www.alldressforms.com/miniature-dress-forms/adf-az/victorian-bustle-dresses-fronts.jpg

[scarletnocturne]

needs more work, i usually spend spend 4 - 6 hours on a picture to get rid of any line art. suggest adding a layer over the top of this image, setting the blending mode to multiply and shade it up with tones of grey, have your brush set to darken and start with the lighter grey swatch working through to black. Looks like you can handle shading concepts so you should do well.
Then add another layer set its blending mode to screen and with bright colour and the brush set to normal add some highlights to the scales.

Hmmm, getting rid of the line art. I suppose I can see how you could think that as that seems to be the style of alot of people here. I could most certainly do the same, if that were the style I were going for. However, as the drawing had a cartoonish feel to it, that is the feel I was going for in the coloring of the piece. Therefore, I did not want to get rid of the line art. Thank you for your comment and I will most certainly look at the scales again.

[scarletnocturne]

Heya. A couple quick things I can recommend --

When trying to figure out the shading, you need to know what direction is coming from. Any part of the character's body that is on the opposite side will be in shadow.

Also a couple for your friend -- when drawing anything it helps to use reference. I would also recommend that she study perspective. Also, I noticed on her site she's placed huge watermarks over everything. While that pretty much guarantees that no one could steal her work, it also ruins them to the point where no one would want to. She may want to consider finding a less obtrusive way to add them to her work.

Here's a quick sketch based on your painting to illustrate a couple of the things. I didn't apply any lighting though. (btw, if you want me to take down the link, just say so)--

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v394/rrimgeaper2/art/dragon3.jpg

Reference used:
Animal Anatomy textbook (muscle groups in torso adapted from horse anatomy)
http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/photos/santa_barbara_california/images/lizard.jpg
http://www.exzooberance.com/virtual%20zoo/they%20swim/crocodile/Crocodile%20471006.jpg
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/conker/weird-beasts/basilisk-lizard.jpg
http://www.collegiatepeaksoutfitters.com/images/sheep5.jpg (sheep for horns)
http://albums.laurenstravels.com/albums/album19/giraffe.jpg (giraffe for neck)
http://www.alldressforms.com/miniature-dress-forms/adf-az/victorian-bustle-dresses-fronts.jpg

Where as I apprechiate your suggestions on how to effectivly shade and light my image...I agree that knowing how to shade is a difficulty for me at the moment. However, that is about the only thing that I can agree on. Your choice to competely rip apart the original image and critisize the original artist because of her choice to attempt and keep people from stealing her original works was completely uncalled for. The request for comments and critique was for what I have done in coloring the dragon, not to insult the original artist. Also, I do apprechiate your effort with the quick sketch to show me where to put shadows but as for referances to how to draw a dragon, I am sure that my friend did in fact look at differant referances and did the best she could, seeing as she is a begining artist. I'll work on my shading and lighting, thank you.

[SmallPoly]

Sorry, scarletnocturne. I didn't mean to come off as insulting, but I know I can be a harsh critic sometimes. The only reason for the redraw was that when painting stuff I have to be able to feel out the volume in my head, so it's hard to light/color something that isn't in proper perspective.. then I startet getting carried away with the detail...I didn't mean it as an insult to solhawk's linework at all. :sad:

Sorry sorry sorry...I should have asked first before doing a paintover...

[Solhawk]

Um... This is Solhawk... I just have one question... Why would you want a refrance of a dragon when they are a mithical being? Just curious here. After all I do belive that being an artest has a lot to do with using your imagnation and putting it on paper. I know that I need to work on forshorting and stuff and I am working hard on doing so. It is not as easie as it looks when you are not being taught but teaching youerself. >.<' I you want to give me advice please join DA and leave comments or email me your advice because I need all the help I can get. O.o' Seriously I do...

As for the whole thing with the water marks I just dont want people to steal my stuff. I have a whole journle on if they wish to use it all they have to do is ask. I accually only put my stuff up to improve upon it. O.o' But yeah.

Tell me about the dragon thing please. Other then the fact that my dragons look a little too much like horses *Started to draw horses first as a child.*

And I would have sent this personally but I cant seem to do so... >.< I feel so left out. *Crys*

Lol Sorry for the long statment... But yeah thanx. ^^

~Solhawk

[SmallPoly]

Hi Solhawk.

Here's what i have to say on reference:

In short, if you want to make things look realistic, you've got to study reality. Part of the reason why I was pushing using a lot of reference is that I resisted it for a long time, and after I started using it I got a lot better, and started developing further ideas based on the things I learned from the it.

Even though it is a fantasy creature, the main reason for using reference when making a dragon is to make it believable as an animal. Of course, it also depends a bit on just how much magic is involved in the world, but usually the magic part will only be used to aid in flying, with the rest of it's body moving using a series of bones and muscles (ex.. a Chinese dragon would have to use magic to fly).

All the bones and muscles of the human body have a certian logic to them that let you move around. Other animals tend to have similar setups with most of the same bones and muscles, but with different lengths, muscle development and specialized parts.

You also find different patters in body structure depending on how that animal behaves. Ex. both dogs and horses are overland runners, so they have similar body proportions and setup. However, unlike horses, dogs are predators, so they have their eyes facing forwards more rather than to the side. Other animals, like cats, are stalking animals, so their bodies are build differently so they can move efficiently whilelow to the ground and pounce on their prey.

So the things I had been thinking when using the reference was "ok.. the skull is basically like a predatory lizards skull... what do lizard skulls look like?" and "ok.. it's got a long neck.. how does nature handle long necks" and most importantly "why does it look this way in nature"

Without reference, you could be sitting around for hours or days trying to work out a proper skeleton and all its muscles from scratch, when it's already been done. There's really no sense trying to reinvent the wheel when nature has done it before and expertly.

Or for another quick example, let's say you were trying to do a realistic drawing of the inside of a submarine. You could probably come up with a few things, and try to remember what you've seen in movies, but chances are, it would never be enough to come up with something like this (http://www.anders.com/pictures/public/04-views/12%20-%20Torpedo%20Tubes%20-%20Russian%20Submarine.jpg), this (http://www.submerged.co.uk/xcraft%207%20big.jpg), or this (http://www.ka8vit.com/cod/COD040531_KA8VIT.JPG)(I know I certianly couldn't).

Using reference doesn't necessarily mean copying directly from a photograph. It works better to first sketch out little parts of the reference to the side, writing little notes on how they are put together -- ex... "small cramped spaces" "knobs and dials and headphones.. maybe some kind of radio transmitter" "typewriter maybe for writing things down from radio" "remanents from welding on joints where metal was attached."

Then if you look at other photographs of similar rooms and do the same thing, you can start to derive a pattern and gain an understanding of your subject.

Okay, hope this helps. :-)

[jackie66]

Hello, I think that I can help you with your lighting problem.
I did a little paintover of the head to show you some lighing things. anything that gets in the way of the light will cast a shadow behind it. remember to be consistent with the direction and legnth of the shadows.
And something about color: light is not nessesarily white and shadows are not nessesarily black. Play with colors, and mix them.
It looks to me like you have been using a soft brush, also try using different ones. do you have a tablet? if so, a hard brush with low opacity and pen pressure on works very nice.
so heres just a quick little thing to show you:
The arrows indicate the light source and direction.
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b147/jackie6651/wip2copy.jpg
(ps, critique may sometimes sound harsh, but people are just trying to help, go easy.:))
hope this can help you.
Jackie.

[scarletnocturne]

Thank you Jackie

[scarletnocturne]

Well, I posted a new version of Daniel and Red Dragon but I discovered that it was only loading half way...so I will have to see what I can do about posting it again tonight.

[Ryu327654]

Doing well hope to see the update soon.

[scarletnocturne]

http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j211/Masagocho/Daniel_and_Evil_dragon_by_Solhawk_V.jpg

Okay, here it is! The reworked Daniel and Red Dragon. Let me know what you think!

[Solhawk]

As much as I love the first this one is far better. The shading is alot better and you even made her hair blonde like it is spose to be lol... *Huggles*

[Hobs]

big improvement. might need a layer of black shadow here and there but that really comes down to the initial sketch.

[kyuketsuki]

You have made some serious improvements on this second version. The lightsource is much more defined. Keep it up. I agree with velenosangue's anatomy and reference comments 100%. I would say that the lighting could still use more definition and perhaps a more muted color scheme would help, but that's more of a taste issue.

Hope this helps.

Cheers

[pixyfearie]

i knwo how hard you worked and how much sleep you missed with this one and i really think its awesome. you did a great job now all you really need for it are the really dark shadows but it can always do without. the pic itself is awesome good job :D

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