My first WIP- Self Portrait

[Arachnode]

Let me be the first to welcome you here. Excellent work! I can't wait to see the final image.

[CybrGfx]

Some nice work, but you are taking wayyyyy too long to paint this. I could see it if you were using a fine point sable brush and oil paints that you had to mix by hand, but if this is digital, you should have been done with the entire head an hour or so ago...

You are jumping into the detailing with no foundation. That's like polishing the marble mantlepiece over the fireplace, when the floor and walls aren't even up yet...

This should have a rough sketch of the entire image and a slightly more detailed sketch of the girl. Then you block in colors (even if they are somewhat translucent), and THEN you start refining and detailing...

You didn't even grid this out, and your eye for proportions is not that good yet. Notice the nose, the blotchy skin tones, and the overall too small facial shape. By not roughing this out, you have also already painted yourself into a corner. You will not be able to paint past the breasts of your photo. That will leave a lot of empty, negative space to fill up with background...
http://img355.imageshack.us/img355/9518/face2gb4.gif

You show a good eye for color and detail. You just need to learn a better workflow than picking a part of the image and painting the dickens out of it, as you slowly expand across the canvas...

Looks decent enough, though. Give it another 10-20 hours, and you should be pleased with the results.

~C

[CandaceKeri]

First off thanks for the "corrective criticism". There is no one way to do art work though. Telling me I should have done it this way or that way just isn't a fair thing to say. Just so everyone knows I have never laid hands on a wacom tablet or even seen the Photoshop program until about one month ago when my boyfriend showed it to me so I could use it for something else he was teaching me. I truly appreciate the time you took to comment, I just wanted to put it out there that I am by far no professional artist. I have never had any training/schooling whatsoever. My work is done by hand from the heart.
Thanks again
~Can

...hey that's pretty cool what you did with the picture though. :)

[CybrGfx]

Sorry, but no. Even with a pencil and paper, to pound your head against a wall, when you can easily walk around it or go over it, is futile.

Hooray, you have NO art training. Consider a critique possibly a bit of education for you. Do not presume to get defensive when your mistakes are pointed out to you. And yes, you SHOULD be much farther along than you are at present. Digital is supposed to be FASTER than traditional.

Do you mean to tell us that you draw with a pencil in this tortuous manner as well? Do you LIKE taking an exceedingly long time to create a work? If so, more power to you. If you are here to LEARN something, put your artistic ego on a back burner, your skills aren't even to the level for you to defend them so vigorously.

IF you were a "professional artist," you wouldn't have posted HERE in the first place...
Instead of defending your mistakes, take the valuable workflow advice given you, and think about it. Maybe even put your efforts into doing some research, since you don't apparently believe that there may be a better way for you to approach this.

If your boyfriend showed you his sportscar or motorcycle, and you didn't know how to drive, and he let you take it out to try it, would you be as defensive when someone told you that you can actually shift the transmission into a higher gear so you can go faster???

You're welcome for the critique. Hopefully you can learn something from it. Or not. Your choice, as always. But, if you find yourself abandoning this before finishing it, remember that the next image you start...

~C

[CandaceKeri]

Wow buddy... just... wow. Back off.

[Arachnode]

For a first time post, and the first time you've worked with this medium, I'd say this is very impressive. I saw the other face you painted in your gallery, I'm assuming you followed a similar workflow for that? I think they both look great!

[CandaceKeri]

Thank you. Yeah I pretty much just look at a picture and find a point that my eye is drawn to and work on it. I do it when I draw with pencil too (of course I do move much quicker with pencil). I'm not so good with using a computer to draw quite yet, but I like the wacom tablet so I think I'm gonna stick with it and work on improving to my liking. I'll throw some of my drawings that I've done with pencil on my gallery as soon as I can. It's funny, I always hated drawing people because I could never get it just right and I would give up, but recently I said "eh what the heck" and I've actually been drawing people a lot lately. So I really appreciate the nice words and your time to look at my work.
Take care
~Can

[secretasianman]

There are the people that get training and then the people that just jump into it.

Kinda harder when ya just jump in, ya don't know alot of the fundamentals. finding spots on a face and building from there is a route that alot of people who first start with no real training strarts. The person goes after what is familiar for them and know. It's inda like instinct we go for what is uaual to us.

The prob with this is that it leaves for mistakes unless you are just really gifted.

Drawing people is one of the hardest things you can do no matter what media you go with.

If you want to keep doin people there are ways that help alot, cybr named a few in her way of posting, she is very critical alot of times but she is very knowledgeable.

When you learn the certain techniques then it becomes easier and alot more fun.

If you do ever have questions there are realy good people here that have alot of exp that don't mind helping and there are also some speed sketching threads that are helpful to with people that help that are in the art buisness.

Sit back have some fun.

oh yea and nice schoolgirl uniform.

[TrenchcoatPixie]

You're not going to improve much if you keep putting more energy into defending your amateur efforts than you do in listening to good advice and correcting your errors. I'm not using "amateur" as an insult, here: it's just what you are. A beginner. It's perfectly obvious that you have no art education, no one here expects professional quality art from you. It might just interest you to know that you have an extremely slow and cumbersome workflow that will hinder you in ever finishing your paintings. True, there is no "one right way" to do art, but there are plenty of bad ways, that neither lend themselves to finished products, or learning anything of value.

CG gave you some very good advice. Swallow a spoonful of humility and think about it, instead of taking it personally. "Your art needs work" isn't the same thing as "I think you're a failure as a human being."

[secretasianman]

http://i229.photobucket.com/albums/ee23/lucky_cow/fun/BondageBunnymini-1.jpg

don't ask it just felt like it fit for a sec.

[CandaceKeri]

Hahaha that is horrible! ...and great

Well, I have no problem taking advice on improving. That's why I'm here. However, instead of such harsh tones how about offering a link to a tutorial or something that may be useful to me in working on my techniques? Like I said before, I totally appreciate people even taking the time to look at my work. So thanks again!
~Can

[secretasianman]

there is a forum here with alot of good info http://forums.cgsociety.org/forumdisplay.php?f=177
it has workshops and tutorials.

also books lots and lots of books are out that are good. art stores have books on drawing anatomy and the way to go about it. also depends on what style you are going for but best to do traditional first, all 2d artists need good traditional skills.

there are books for traditional how to draw and comic book and manga, depends on your likes.

some of us have mainly all, plus many sketchbooks from different artists.

you can do intenet look ups for example http://drawsketch.about.com/od/drawinglessonsandtips/ss/griddrawing.htm
that site ells you how to use grids to do work, grids and pinpoints are really good for people to learn.

here is a good one that has scans on doin it like comic book style, http://ratcreature.livejournal.com/175099.html
funny i actually have that book.

this guy http://www.carloshuanteart.com/gallery.html wish i could give you the vid by this guy he is great and has good learning skills for people, he actually made drawing fun again in some areas.

[D0NNYboy]

From a graphics standpoint, your photo is more beautiful than your painting, but even the coldest strictest graphic technician must admit that a large part of art is turning on others and yes, getting approval from others. In that respect your painting is more beautiful than your photo.

[EndoTouch]

Hi,
I noticed you work with very small areas. Some advice I needed when I began was to start with the biggest brush you can then work smaller. Painting is very hard when you start with the details. Block everything out first with simple shapes. After that apply the contours. Now you have a silhouette. Shade the silhouette and start adding in smaller shapes. If you work down correcting mistakes won't be like starting over, if you paint subtleties in early they will need to be redone when you work over your mistakes. Well I hope I helped.

Endo

Edit. White is awful as a background colour when painting. I think you'll have a better time painting on top of a relevant mid-tone, like the pink on the wall of your reference photo.

[CandaceKeri]

Thanks so much everyone! Your advise is definitely appreciated and I will try out these new approaches. I can't believe so many people have already viewed this drawing. I think I like this site. :)
Take care all-
~Can

[Helenlyn]

Good job!

(this will seem off-topic, but I'm *trying* to make a point... dunno if I'll succeed yet)
I've studied music seriously for almost a decade, yet I am STILL learning more efficient ways to practice.

In the realm of art I've had very limited training and even more limited time to develop my skills. At the moment I'm receiving no formal art training... I work about 25 hrs/wk, study music around 15 hrs/wk, and am in class or labs for another 18 hrs/week. And theoretically I sleep, leaving around 57 hours for meetings, study, eating, and personal interests. In that order.

Efficiency is key.

I know what you mean by picking a point and starting. I've drawn lots of pictures like that. It still works well when I'm bored in gen chem and start sketching random things.
However, for longer pieces that are more developed and detailed, (such as the one you're doing), you want to PLAN!

I speak from experience.
If you don't plan, you will come to pitfall after pitfall until you either finish or give up. (In my case, past experiences have resulted in the latter. *grins sheepishly*)

Common pitfalls
1. Anatomy Mistakes
it's really frustrating to spend hours on something and then realize that it doesn't look right. And then have to spend more hours on it to correct it.

2. Bad composition
This is rarely a mistake made when a piece is planned out, but it's all too common in spur-of-the-moment, just-go-with-it pieces. It doesn't matter much if you don't spend too much time on the drawing, but if you spend hours upon hours on it, it really detracts from the overall quality and visual impression it gives to people.
Composition guarantees that people who look at your art will spend more time appreciating it.
It's also very hard to fix if you've already put a lot of detailing into the picture.


I always feel pretty hypocritical when giving critique. A lot of the time I realize that to achieve what the artist has achieved I would have to put a lot of effort in, and even then it may not be on par with the person I'm critiquing.
Usually I try to tell them what LOOKS wrong to the casual viewer.

At this point your painting isn't quite ready for me to tell you what jumps out as wrong to me.

People here have already presented several methods to improve efficiency.

I personally advocate using the ellipses/circles to block in body parts and perfect anatomy. Three years ago when I was a shorter high school freshmen taking art, I HATED the little circle-y things. They were for KIDS!
They are now the fudge to my brownie, and I will probably still use them when my theoretical great great grandchildren are drawing me stick figures.

[CandaceKeri]

Okay so I got a bit side tracked, but I finally decided to give this painting another go (after staring at it in frustration for as long as I could). I haven't done much at all really. But I did adjust the proportions. I know it still isn't exact, but I am ok with that. Lesson has been learned for the next time I begin a painting... GET THE SKETCH RIGHT FIRST! Blah.

Well here it is. Any more suggestions or tutorials are more than welcome. Thanks!

By the way, I posted another WIP on here, Ashley with Flowers
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=31&t=690647

http://i104.photobucket.com/albums/m191/CandaceKeri/number7.jpg

Oh yeah I forgot something... it is probably somewhat important in mentioning that I did not want to paint exactly what the reference looks like. I was thinking of a different background. I was in the bathroom when I took this picture (hehe) so I didn't really want that in something I am taking the time to paint. I don't really want the same position of my body either.
I'm not sure what I want to do to the background actually. Anyone have a suggestion for that?

[fluxist8070]

Hey there,
Nice study of the face.
I suggest working on the whole image at the same time. The whole is equal to the sum of all its parts.
Your colors are really nice. One issue is your actual reference, it does not have a clear light source. Check out some Rembrandt Rubens paintings. You will see how a clear light source will make your life easier.
Also, with most master painters, they will keep the darks "thin" work those areas less and then build the lights. You ca do the same thing with photoshop. Try it out. you might like it.
If you have a museum near where you are, it might be worth a visit.
MOST of all it is important to enjoy your image. If you want to analyze or try to force an image into submission, it will show in the end result. If you enjoy your work, it will also show through in you strokes and marks.

[CybrGfx]

Lesson has been learned for the next time I begin a painting... GET THE SKETCH RIGHT FIRST! Blah. Yeah, those nit-picky rules DO get in the way of the sheer freedom of creativity, but the trade off is a better image in the end...Everything in Life has it's cost. Some things only cost you some time or effort. Oh yeah I forgot something... it is probably somewhat important in mentioning that I did not want to paint exactly what the reference looks like. I was thinking of a different background. I was in the bathroom when I took this picture (hehe) so I didn't really want that in something I am taking the time to paint. I don't really want the same position of my body either.
I'm not sure what I want to do to the background actually. Anyone have a suggestion for that?Yeah, think of these things BEFORE you start a picture. I mean, really...
Put her in clown suit, with a 3 ring circus background behind her...
Put her in a Princess gown with Prince Charming and a glass slipper...
Put her in a Pith Helmet in a jungle..
Put her in the clutches of a monster...
Put her in a lake, surrounded by hungry bats with knives and forks...

Only YOU can create what interests YOU. You are the one creating this, not us...

I also suggest that you stop detailing NOW, and go ahead and decide what you are going to do with all that empty space, even if you do nothing more than crop it all off, and just add some hair and a neck to your portrait and call it done.

This is why you do this thinking thing first. By neglecting it, you now have a decently painted face, and nothing else. And YOU, the creator, can't even imagine something to surround the face...

You cannot even conceive of "thin darks," or working with building lights, until you know what the hell you are building in the first place!

Think of it like getting in your car and going for a drive.
Where are you going?
How are you going to get there?
When you think about the image as a whole before you even start, it's like having a map and destination to go to. You're just sitting in the car on the on-ramp, in parking gear, with your engine revving...Doesn't matter how fancy a car you have, or how good the gas in it. You can't really get anywhere, or accomplish anything, without some sort of goal to aim for...

I suggest cropping this as close as possible, and keeping it as a possible face to add to your next image, and starting fresh with a plan in mind.

~C

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