Expressions are another thing, yup.
Here is a pose sketch by my mum and my version. The pose is better now, but anatomy still needs work, she is a bit to heavy:
[left]The pose is better now, but anatomy still needs work and she is a bit to heavy, maybe needs longer “lower leg”. Also I’ve stepped on this manip and found URL to a nice stock with dancers in descripotion, only it takes ages to download it 
Haven’t found this pose there, but a lot of refs for hands.
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Late night update:
Pregnancy is not intentional, will be fixed. Rachel Brice can inflate belly a lot (see the final scenes), but not in such position. [Control smoke/fog on a layer.]
Pregnancy fixed. T.b.c.:
Anatomy from knees up to top should be of e human (though might be a bit longer). If it looks off please let me know.
Oh faces, someone told me it’s easy to guess that my images have been done by a woman for all my men are too beautiful. Well most of them supposed to be, but yes it is something I want to find a balance - between beauty and character.
I’ve tried to sketch a manly and not beautiful face tonight while watching TV. For some reason watching and drawing makes the process easier. Maybe I need distractions to work faster and better? I messed up his muscles and only compared with random Hogarth drawing in the end, but left it, here he is:
And some older stuff I just scanned:
2008.06.07, digital.
I did so little in last weeks and once I stopped got stuck with the snaky chick. On the other hand I’ve had a really busy month learning a lot of different new things, when my head is occupied with one thing I drop other. Something I need to exercise to have a break and sketch in that time, so nothing gets forgotten. Or learn to do 2-3 things at once, constantly to be occupied and focused on a drawing. Maybe audio books are good idea, songs aren’t distracting in that way, they fade into background or I leave drawing and only listen.
And do other faces while polishing those I still seek to idealize.
BTW, who has got web storage problems - a friend recommended me recently to use DropBox, I’m just trying it right now. 2,3GB of free space (purchase of more is available).
All should be OK, but if you don’t see anything here let me know
I inked the sketchy man yesterday and Painter crushed on me in a moment I wanted to save a file. I inked him again today and I it went even better. A quick digital exercise:
Gislaine, thank you! She is on hold, but I want to finish her ASAP. Changed my mind about her bra into a more scales-like thing, this should look less common.
Ok, I decided to turn the workshops sketch into illustration. And I want it to be a quick work - I mean not my typical “endlessly-fixing” work. I want to loose that need of perfection which is in fact killing my works. What a use of it if I cannot finish anything? So, I’m trying!
First I resized rider’s head (was too large), then moved and sized down elements into a better composition. Sketched some crappy trees and only then remembered in this forest suppose to grow the eldest and highest trees in Middle-earth, so I hope sequoia trees will be a good addition. I still want to keep the small crappy ones. I need to find references now, haven’t checked anything yet. Especially the horse needs one badly. My second ‘real’ horse, so horse lovers forgive me 
Any points appreciated, all is on separate layers. Steps so far, the first pne is resized and rearranged ball-pen sketch from workshops:
I like the back leg of the horse, this is probably the only part of it which will stay
[left]Colours added to separate elements, but maybe I’ll colour it in the end. The forest supposed to be shady, the guy almost hidden in it while the girl bright, all light focused on her.
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The back and front of the horse are in different perspective/angle, as they were. I guess using references of two different horses fitting two different angles didn’t help.
I think you need to re-work your composition.
What bothers me the most is the man on the right being quite prominent, but his pose is way too static to be interesting. There is also no story to be derived from his facial expressions. He seems to have died piecefully while standing against that tree.
The framing trees are overkill I think.
Making the trees less prominently visible, less static will add to the composition. For example, the trees in the background can be used to lead the viewer’s eye back to the rider if you would depict them less vertically but more in an angle toward the left of the painting.
Is the rider going towards the guy on the right? Or moving away?
Try to make that more obvious. You will probably have to change the pose for that.
Also the rider’s pose is not in accordance with the horse’s position. She will fall off in a second unless you make her lean forward more.
Hope all this doesn’t sound too harsh
Keep going!
No, thank you! That’s a problem of a good composition vs illustration accuracy. How can the tallest trees in the world bent? The angle you wrote of. I’ll try, nothing is set. I decided to kick away the smaller trees, at least the two in the centre, they do not fit at all with sequoia trees. While sequoia could have much wider bottom parts than I drew, these could add angle. Sequoia
forest: http://garden.lovetoknow.com/wiki/Redwood
The forest supposed to be shady, dark. The watcher the best not visible at the first sight, though he I probably to well exposed for that. He is hidden from the rider’s sight, too and the rider is passing by in a distance.
Strange, I find the watcher’s expression accurate, not dead. He is not moving to stay invisible.
But all of this is nothing, the horse is a crap: the back is side view, the front is 3/4 view, the rider’s pose is somewhere between. If I leave it the whole image will be a crap.
I checked rider poses on photos, some seat, some are up, all depends how fast the horse runs, I decided it is not that fast here. But yes, her pose needs a fix, too. Yet first the horse, then the rider. They are both the main element here, the only bright spot, rest will be painted dark or just ‘scribbled’ with ink. We’ll see.
A quick forest change sketch (rest untouched):
[left]The trees are still growing too tight, I should rather add more smaller ones as on the ref photos.
OK, tonight I’ll make the horse jump, redraw the rider, too. We’ll see then. Now gotta go 
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The old and new new background:
Plus colour test. The rider slightly altered, but both she and the horse need a fix. Haven’t decided yet if the horse jumps over a stream or just runs through a ravine.
Update on the tribal dancer, I’m too late again!
Shortened neck and further forearm, hands unfinished, as the body. Nothing is finished, yet:
Haven’t decided what bra she’ll get, scales test didn’t work.
Maybe this picture of Rachel Brice will give you some inspiration
(Her bra is a bit ‘scaley’ too, lol)
Hey, thank you, I’ve got this one - one of the nicest shots of her. These are coins, I was thinking of snake’s scales - real scales instead of a bra.
OK, I think I fixed the torso and arms enough to start dressing her:
[left]Edit. Or maybe I wasted time, for I like teh previous update even better, hmmm. Some issues fixed, some must be result of repainting.
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No way I could finish tonight, with some luck I’ll manage to another Exotique.
[left]Stupid me, if I didn’t try to draw a horse instead of this one. But thsi way I can alwaysm make the dancer better.
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Finally got back to drawing again, unfortunately to unhealthy time zone, either. Need to turn night into night and day into day again O_o
Anyway I drew a few doodles, one funny image in a different style and I managed to encourage a few net pals who are totally new to digital art and try to paint with a mouse. Thus I installed ArtRage again, which is IMO the best for people learning to draw - both learning digital and drawing itself, not using filters and tricks (though those are handy, too, especially to move that perfectly painted eye a bit to the left). I need to use AR more often myself! I’ve made for those mouse drawing folks basic ArtRage guide on how to open a document, choose a background, what brushes look like etc. and how to use mouse to draw.
Here it is, maybe you know anyone who would find it useful, too (I doubt any of you doesn’t know what I say there):
ArtRage Beginners Guide + mouse
But if you have ideas how to improve it let me know. And the mouse doodle from the guide:
Eye form a mouse doodle for one of the ‘mousers’, done in Photoshop:
I need to do one in ArtRage, too, and feel a need to do it in pencil on paper, just browsed realistic eye in pencil tutorials on dA, need to test it.
Airbrushes image in Painter (with a tablet) - candy colours and a doll like princess I don’t know how to call such stylization? Started with a doodle different from the final result:
[1 is first take on her, 4 the final.]
Still I got to make eyes sharper on the original image (sharpened all after rescaling here). I used here mostly airbrushes for the first time after a longer while and I hate them. I still use them, they’re more textured in Painter than in Photoshop, but it gives too much blurriness to image which I personally hate. I also used soft blender stump to match the airbrushes. Generally I’m in brush crisis period, none of the brushes in reach satisfy me. Need to load custom brushes closer to Photoshop’s basic rounded brush or learn finally how to work with acrylics, oils and pastels. Also I want to try them on real canvas, but need to learn more before I invest into materials. Got small acrylics set at home already, but haven’t opened them, yet.
Generally I’ve got art making crisis and feel I stepped back in last weeks when I stopped drawing at all. Bad move to make a break from drawing. But I’m slowly coming back, partially by having fun painting with a mouse. While teaching the ‘mousers’ basics I discovered a few nice details by the way, which helps me either. The only problem si they’re learning fast and will get me soon with their mouses, aaaa! :twisted:
BTW, the posting looks totally different in Google Chrome, like old style forums. I would get images etc. under FF, here got visible all the img tags etc.
