Wondeful Sketch (as always) Don.
Let me be the first to offer a warm welcome to you Don … I have always loved your art and have found it very Insperational in the past. It is an Honour to be posting in the same thread as yourself and I do hope you stick around with us to offer some tips and crits your imput as with all the other fine artists here is a great help :).
Can’t wait to see more…and Hopefully post more and Learn more :).
K.
donseeg,
Awesome!!! I just met you at the Guerilla Studio at SIGGRAPH ~ I know you don’t remember me, but Roberto (Ortiz) and I watched a bit of your demo on digital painting which was really cool. I actually just bought your book at a SIGGRAPH booth there. Wish I could have watched the whole demo, but SIGGRAPH was like an ADD kid’s dream come true. Ha! 
Great to see you here, and it will just be oodles of fun watching your work develop. Oh, and hint hint feel free to post a little mini-tutorial on the main Anatomy forum ~ I guarantee the natives would be appreciative.
~Rebeccak
me! me! me! The image I used as my avatar was made using Don’s tutorial on watercolor in painting. It was my first completed drawing in painting with painter. Now I’ve picked up some more information I might go back and do the tutorial again with the same pic 
Hey Becca, your brownies must be really good. You keep reeling in the big guns. 
You go girl!
I’m going to start rolling out cookies, cake, ice cream, donuts, and Starbucks coffee if the big guns keep rolling in!
~Rebeccak
Was having second thoughts about posting after seeing so much great work… but ok, here goes nothing
All kinds of crits very welcome, be as vicious as you like as it’s my first attempt (digitally)and I need all the help I can get. Thanks!
Looks can be deceiving. No tracing involved. The contrast is intentional for it’s current state, and I rather like it that way at the moment, but the original plan is for color tinting.
-David
amy_517,
Nice work so far!! I would just watch the proportion of her legs, which are short with respect to the rest of her figure. This is an easy Photoshop fix however that shouldn’t take much effort to do. Watch the chin, too, as it looks a bit too large for her face. These are all tweaks that I’m sure will be refined with time ~ great to see your progress!
~Rebeccak
Squibbit: You have a talent for making threads more entertaining. Nice drawing too.
Amy: That is a very nice attempt if you haven’t done anything similiar digitally before. My first impression was that she looks thin and there is something funny going on with the back of her head. Those are pretty minor things though. If you draw her whole head without any hair on it, you’ll probably see that there should be more hair painted towards her arm (on the back of her head) to make the shape of the head look more natural. Try mirroring the image too if you haven’t done so already. It really helps.
The face and some other parts of the picture look really really good and you have a nice touch with shading. You certainly have the skill to make this a fantastic piece if you tweak the anatomy a little and keep on working. 
Thank you. I try. There was a lot of digital clean up of the pencil lines to get it where it is.
-DBC
Updated mine a little more. This is turning into a full blown piece!
dbclemons, your work is quite astounding, the last post you made was just sublime, I loved the high contrast, yet she still feels full of weight and mass, not just linework.
amy 517: wow, thats your first digital piece? Holy moly, you must be destined for great things! As far as the proportional things rebecca mentioned, I often find placing the original picture under the file you’re working on and clicking between the two windows often gives you an idea of where you’re slightly off, almost like doing a really short animation flick book with two frames. If you do it quick enough, you’ll start to see where you’re off. Works for me on a mac OS9, anyhow, not sure how it would work on a PC, as my window minimisers don’t send the file to the bottom of the screen.
and zhuzhu, I’m continually amazed at your digital works here, what impressed me most about this particular one is your knack for making the lines of her back, her shoulder blades and the creases in her skin with the edge of the colour. And rebecca… call for backup indeed. One look at that pencil sketch and my envy causes me to melt into a gooey puddle.
Hi,
After many tries this is my first sketch worth posting :D. I'm not good at hand and feet drawing.... please, let me know if there are something else in need of fixing. Thanks!
[[img]http://img284.imageshack.us/img284/2052/figuredraw017cw.th.jpg[/img]](http://img284.imageshack.us/my.php?image=figuredraw017cw.jpg)
KhaRebecca, thedagger and Zephyri : thank you very much for your advice and encouragement Crits duly noted and will be acted on. It’s amazing how obvious problems like these are once someone points them out… i’ve been staring at the thing for so long I just don’t see them otherwise.
I’ve managed something similar to what Zephyri suggested by putting the photo on a seperate layer on top in Photoshop and flicking it on and off - but i’m probably on thin ice here regarding allegations of tracing… what does everyone else think? (I’m not tracing it, just lining it up on top so I can see where my drawing is off).
BTW, i have used Photoshop before, but only for naff webpage buttons and things, and some simple textures for 3D stuff. As a first attempt at an actual digital painting, i’m fairly happy with it so far thanks Rebecca for the push to give it a go, and the lovely photos
I have made an update to my earlier piece. I wanted to post it before coloring it. I have enjoyed watching the posts you guys have made. Very talented people here. If it wasn’t for Becca’s encouragement I’d have just scurried back into my hole. 
zhuzhu,
Nice! Her bottom is still a bit large, but of course I like your watercolor technique. Might I may make a radical suggestion? I think it might be good if you focused a bit less on the (beautiful) watercolor technique which you have developed, and go a bit more into linework. I only suggest this because I think it will make your lovely watercolor paintings that much better. Just a suggestion.
Zepyhri,
WOW!!! I just cannot wait to see where you go with this piece! Once you detail the wings, resolve the column and just generally work up this piece, it is going to be really nice. Definitely try to continue to work up the piece as a whole as you have done so far. Please continue to post your results!
Kha,
Nice work so far!! I think that the main thing that I would say at this point would be to try to make your lines a bit less stiff. Traditional work is harder to go back into and adjust than digital work, so I would suggest even doing another drawing of the same pose. The advantage is now you are familiar with the pose, and the confidence which you have gained from doing this first drawing will allow you to relax your lines a bit in a new drawing.
Hope to see more updates of your work!!
amy_517,
You are more than welcome, and I am glad to see that everyone here seems to really be benefitting from the group interaction and from seeing others’ work! You know, with respect to the “cheating” thing, that line is really blurred in the digital age. Is it ‘cheating’ in 3D to create a perfectly rendered sphere in under a second? Not really, you’re just using the medium as it should be used. Old Masters “cheated” by using grids. There have always been and always will be devices for “cheating” which help us to accomplish our work. I absolutely don’t endorse tracing and trying to pass it off as your own work ~ THAT is cheating. Taking the occasional measurement, or tracing FIRST to have a general understanding of things or as practice, I actually endorse. So it’s really up to the individual to decide where that line is, and how honest they wish to be.
Queensoul,
WOW!! I think you have gotten a great start with this! Now, granted there are problems which others are free to give advice about. But I think your relative proportions are really decent. You have made her a bit shorter and stockier than the reference photo, but I am certainly a proponent of taking artistic license. Generally speaking I use the model as a vehicle for expression ~ I rarely if ever try to copy the model exactly. That is just me, and I love to see the fully representational work of others. The point is, do what you like, so long as you feel in control of the process.
Keep going with this. Save versions, and post your results!!
~Rebeccak
THis is a sweet freaking thread.
I just painted a photo, I think I will do this thread after.
-Andrew