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[Soadreqm]

Straight? Bah! As long as the engines are placed so that they don't make the ship rotate (or tear it apart) every time you try to move forward, there are no shape restrictions. If your setting has some kind of weird techno-magic future engines that don't use Newtonian physics, there isn't even a need for that.

[mendonca]

That is the best picture I have seen in a while. Amazing. 

Is she keeping her cannonballs in a plastic bag?

[Guardian G.I.]

lordnincompoop, are you registered at ConceptArt.org?
I'm sure that your skills in tearing everyone and everything to shreds with critique should prove useful out there. You would fit nicely in the Critique Center & W.I.P. Showcase.

[lordnincompoop]

lordnincompoop, are you registered at ConceptArt.org?

Kinda. I have an account I don't use; I haven't produced anything significant in very long.

I'm sure that your skills in tearing everyone and everything to shreds with critique should prove useful out there. You would fit nicely in the Critique Center & W.I.P. Showcase.

I'm flattered, but I just feel too uncomfortable (and insufficient) there. Too many people to embarrass myself in front of.

I do realise that what I'm doing about that is wrong and bad, but... yeah.

[Guardian G.I.]

Well, there are always lots of beginners in the Sketchbook forum that need to be shoveled into the right direction.
Also, creating your own sketchbook and posting artwork there is a good idea (for getting noticed, receiving critiques, etc.) If you start tearing everyone apart in the Sketchbook forum just like you do here, you will get the attention of the crowd for sure.

[Muffindog]

The reason why I suck speech

Ouch. I newer knew words could hurt so much...

Just kidding, I brought this to myself, I can face it too.

For starters, I never called myself brilliant or compared my abilities with one of those people... Not people, Übermenschen. I'm far, far, faaaaar away from that. I'm said it was one of the best drawings in my class, but I'm not in art school. In my entire high-school we only did two drawings, we focused more on the history of art. Including Renoir and Rembrandt, Michelangelo.

And of course Hitler, but not as an artist but more as the enemy of modern art. The teacher never even called him an artist, but a mere house painter that thought of himself more. And of course, him burning the so called degenerate art (or the "vile art" as she called it) after the art academy rejected him. Now you got me interested in seeing more of his paintings.

So, putting my jade-coloured glasses and my sour armor on and off to work! Back to traditional art. By the way, I have no tablet to throw away, I'm too poor to afford one. Drew the pictures with a mouse. And about drawing symbols, I'm not sure I understand what you mean by it. I searched back for 50 pages, I'm afraid I missed the subject.
 

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

This is the second of my two school assignments, a Greek statue head. The teacher teased us and didn't want to tell us which gender it was, and it was absolutely androgynous. Wish I had a better shot of it. A friend got a photo of it while we were skipping school

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Drew this, a figurine my mother keeps in the house. I'll be sketching more things around me and do the shading exercises.

Please be gentle :c

[lordnincompoop]

And of course Hitler, but not as an artist but more as the enemy of modern art. The teacher never even called him an artist, but a mere house painter that thought of himself more. And of course, him burning the so called degenerate art (or the "vile art" as she called it) after the art academy rejected him. Now you got me interested in seeing more of his paintings.

Once a teacher uses phrases like "the enemy of modern art", "mere", "house painter", "vile" and "degenerate", I generally try to stop listening to them before I roll my eyes right out of their sockets.

Here are the facts: Firstly, Hitler never burned down the Academy. There are no credible accounts of this; go ahead, look for them (in fact, the Academy suffered few consequences during the Nazi regime besides having to cut down on Jewish workers). Secondly, there are also no records of Hitler's arrogance regarding his artistic ability during this time, either. The main reason they rejected him was because he simply wasn't quite up to par, and was recommended architecture as an alternative career (which he also could not initiate due to having been expelled from school due to insubordination); after that, he wandered about in poverty for several years as a bohemian artist selling watercolours and as a doer of odd jobs.

I find that far too many teachers skew the facts - and sometimes even make up fiction, as was in all likelihood done here - against Hitler because of their prejudices and because he is generally considered to be a despicable figure (the Satan of our time, I suppose). A shame, too; people deserve to learn what's right.

The moral of this being that teachers are not historians. Go figure.

So, putting my jade-coloured glasses and my sour armor on and off to work! Back to traditional art. By the way, I have no tablet to throw away, I'm too poor to afford one. Drew the pictures with a mouse.

Every time you digitally paint with a mouse, you are forcing Jesus to kill a kitten. Why are you making him kill kittens, yo? You're making him cry, too! You made Jesus cry, you monster! Don't do it!

And about drawing symbols, I'm not sure I understand what you mean by it. I searched back for 50 pages, I'm afraid I missed the subject.

Well, props to you at least for taking the effort to look that far back.

Here's a quote from a website regarding symbol-drawing, which is very prevalent in beginner portraiture (no link to website because it's bleh otherwise):

Most people think in terms of symbols when they draw a picture of something.

They draw the same picture, or symbols, over and over for a certain thing, perhaps a chair, and they definitely do this when drawing people.

The key to creating a good likeness is to draw what you see and not the generic picture symbol you learned in 3rd grade.
Learning what something looks like and drawing its likeness is not the same as drawing the same picture for that object every time.
This section will help you learn how to manipulate that "symbol" you are using for faces so you can draw them however you want.

Here's a very basic and clear example:



Look at this. It is a circle, containing two smaller circles arranged horizontally above a line. There is no more to it.

Yet, you clearly perceive it as a face. Symbol drawing is similar, as instead of drawing what is actually in front of you, you repeat the same "symbols" (little clip-art stamps, if you will) and draw what your abstract idea of an eye and a nose and a mouth - or simply letting those ideas influence you. The result is almost always a confusing mess, as almost nobody doing this has even the slightest clue of what these facial components actually look like. They - and you, probably - haven't ever really paid attention to the shape and form of, say, a nose.

Here's another one.



It's very abstract, isn't it? Not like a face at all, and it consists entirely of "symbols" that are not faithful to what that person truly looks like. If you're like me, you'll be struggling for about five minutes to even recognise it for anything else besides some dots, lines and wobbly shapes.

Here's some more from the same artist.



THEY ALL LOOK THE SAME.

The only distinguishing characteristics are their hair (this is also really terrible character design as explained by Dresden Codak here. He makes some good tutorials, by the way, so bookmark his blog). This is precisely why you should avoid symbol drawing, because they're unconvincing, repetitive, and will get you rejected from art school.

The best way to practice away from it is to avoid tutorials that focus only on parts of the face (such as just the nose, just the eye and just the mouth), as they'll just worsen the condition most of the time, and to always try to draw what is in front of you and only what is in front of you. Pretend you're a camera, if you have to.

This is the second of my two school assignments, a Greek statue head. The teacher teased us and didn't want to tell us which gender it was, and it was absolutely androgynous. Wish I had a better shot of it. A friend got a photo of it while we were skipping school

I can't see anything here, so I won't bother.

I didn't know your school allowed you to bring wine to field trips.

Two weaknesses:

• For the love of god, do those damn shading exercises.
• You are bad with depth and form. Focus on those when you practise. Gain an intuitive grasp of perspective and shapes.

Please be gentle :c

nowai, bro

you asked for it

[The Fool]

Allow me to elaborate on what was said. The barrel in the drawing appears flat. You need to darken areas in the shadows, and even if you don't see many, exaggerate them. The same goes for the dogs in the picture.

Lastly ignore what you think a dog should look like. Draw what you see, not what you think you should see. This may be a bit of an abstract way of thinking, but it's what you should do while shading. If you think about what it should look like you'll try to draw that instead of what you see. I hope that made sense.

[Vector]

I've got to say, man, if you don't see any differences in those faces other than hair, then maybe you should study form a little harder.  Yes, they're all drawn in the same style.  That doesn't mean they are all identical.  There are micro-changes that give a different effect to each face.  They don't even have the same eyes.

There's different kinds of cartoon art.  I understand that bashing cartoonists at every turn is fun for you, but cartoon art is generally not there for single images.  It is expression through flexibly manipulated form.  Whatever isn't important, whatever doesn't tell part of the story, doesn't make it.


I do not think an art thread is the appropriate venue for this sort of power-tripping discussion of good art/bad art centered around realism.

Embrace divergent styles. Difference is good, try to understand what the person is aiming for and gauge the usefullness of your critique against that. Example: saying a piece lacks proper shading, when it is done in a more cartoonish style, is not so useful. However, a bit of advice about line-weight may be very beneficial to the poster.

Not even this art thread.


The guy who drew this is brilliant (he also drew this; as may possibly surprise you, he has an excellent understanding of anatomy, as he used to be a surgeon).  And frankly, so is the guy who drew this and this.  And this guy.

For that matter, so are Matisse and Picasso.

Yup, it's symbolic art.  Why is it so important to draw a lanky little boy with normal proportions, when the squashed down shape is so much funnier?  Why does the eye have to have x or y shape when a larger one would make it easier to show subtle facial expressions, certain variants becoming expressions of character in a new symbolic economy?

I'm not trying to defend my own art, because I am a shitty cartoonist, and I'm not trying to say you aren't completely correct about your realism critiques or suggestions to people who are trying to draw realistically.  But I've watched you rip into cartooning as a style for a few reviews, now, and it's getting tiring.  You might get a lot out of reading Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics.  It'd be an education.

[lordnincompoop]

I've got to say, man, if you don't see any differences in those faces other than hair, then maybe you should study form a little harder.  Yes, they're all drawn in the same style.  That doesn't mean they are all identical.  There are micro-changes that give a different effect to each face.  They don't even have the same eyes.

I have a problem with bad character design. Individual characters should be able to be striking and to give a distinguishing impression. If you think something like this (it's a good example despite the caption beneath it) is good character design, then fine, I suppose I won't be able to convince you otherwise.

Micro-changes aren't enough. I'm not so bad as to not discern any difference at all between the faces, and I do see them, but they're not enough. When you have a whole stack of characters like that, it gets boring fast.

There's a little hyperbole in there. I admit, I'm feeling theatrical (though for other reasons), but yes, that was hyperbole.

There's different kinds of cartoon art.  I understand that bashing cartoonists at every turn is fun for you, but cartoon art is generally not there for single images.  It is expression through flexibly manipulated form.  Whatever isn't important, whatever doesn't tell part of the story, doesn't make it.

Except this isn't about the cartoons.

I do enjoy cartoons. I also think that there are too many pitfalls there for a lot of budding artists to fall into.

I do not think an art thread is the appropriate venue for this sort of power-tripping discussion of good art/bad art centered around realism.

The aim was to discuss use of symbols in the kind of portraiture where this is undesirable.

And ouch, power-tripping. You hurt me there.

Embrace divergent styles. Difference is good, try to understand what the person is aiming for and gauge the usefullness of your critique against that. Example: saying a piece lacks proper shading, when it is done in a more cartoonish style, is not so useful. However, a bit of advice about line-weight may be very beneficial to the poster.

Not even this art thread.

You're also missing out on the context here. I wasn't critiquing a cartoonist, as you seem to be implying. I'm critiquing something where this advice applies.

I don't critique cartoons with this - if fact, if I caught someone doing this, I might have a similar reaction to yours (though perhaps less heated).

The guy who drew this is brilliant (he also drew this; as may possibly surprise you, he has an excellent understanding of anatomy, as he used to be a surgeon).  And frankly, so is the guy who drew this and this.  And this guy.

For that matter, so are Matisse and Picasso.

Yup, it's symbolic art.  Why is it so important to draw a lanky little boy with normal proportions, when the squashed down shape is so much funnier?  Why does the eye have to have x or y shape when a larger one would make it easier to show subtle facial expressions, certain variants becoming expressions of character in a new symbolic economy?

I'm not trying to defend my own art, because I am a shitty cartoonist, and I'm not trying to say you aren't completely correct about your realism critiques or suggestions to people who are trying to draw realistically.  But I've watched you rip into cartooning as a style for a few reviews, now, and it's getting tiring.  You might get a lot out of reading Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics.  It'd be an education.

I'm going to stop here, because you need to more carefully examine what it is you're railing against. Please, consider context more carefully.

[Vector]

Well, that depends (your bad example).  For example, Peanuts has pretty much the same face for all of its characters, and yet it somehow works.  Possibly because it's a short strip with gags more than a story-story.  That level of detail repeated so many times is disturbing if you have it for all the characters.

But hey, anyway, I think I'll just ask you to roll it back a bit and remove my foot from my mouth.  Thanks for being so gracious.  I was kind of pressed for time and didn't have a chance to look at the tone/discussion more carefully, which I obviously should have.

[Askot Bokbondeler]

i'll agree that that wasn't a good example of bad character design. there is some stylistical consistence, the eyes, nose and mouth are very simplified, yet the artist still manages to make the characters distinct through manipulation of the face outline and slight variations to the face traits, that's not bad character design, that's syntheticism and subtlety
there's another thing, bringing up character design when criticizing someone's draughtsmanship is pretty dumb, there are no "characters" in draughtsmanship
that said, i agree that being able to recognize and dispel symbols and schematics is very important, even when creating stylized art. if one draws stylized art, which necessarily recurs to symbols, without being able to recognize the realistic form, one cannot be said to be drawing, but merely repeating shapes like a child playing with stamps or a layman doodling stickmen and smiley faces.
that's my main gripe with, for example, anime and manga. it's a form of stylized drawing that has everything already layed out for you by someone else, with plenty of symbols and schematics someone else already came up with, so you don't need to learn to draw to think you can draw: it's instant "talent", just add water and stir

[Vector]

that's my main gripe with, for example, anime and manga. it's a form of stylized drawing that has everything already layed out for you by someone else, with plenty of symbols and schematics someone else already came up with, so you don't need to learn to draw to think you can draw: it's instant "talent", just add water and stir

Not really.  If you're actually familiar with the genre, you can differentiate between the work of a master and an amateur quite easily.  It's pretty easy to tell when people are doing the instant talent thing, because it looks great in all the technical respects but is fucking boring.  There's nothing there.

It's kind of like saying "pre-Renaissance iconography is a form of stylized drawing that..."  It really isn't.  Same figures, same ideas, a collection of learned techniques, but you can still tell the masters from the shlubs.

[The Fool]

Lately I've been experimenting with simplified black and white drawings to help me simplify my shading to something more manageable. I have a problem of overdetailing things in my drawings, so if I can get used to two and three shade drawings then it'll help me in the long run. Here is my attempt at a two tone picture.



I'm not happy with the front leg shape, and the back leg placement, but it was a good example of stylizing an image as well as symbolism in drawings. The person is almost entirely made of symbols. The body shape, face construction, and clothes are all a kind of symbol. Since this isn't realism, and these things don't exist we rely on what we think they should be. While the creature doesn't exist we can tell where the head is, and of where the legs are. To do this I used a shape that represents something that already exists elsewhere, a symbol (a moderately detailed symbol, but a symbol none the less).

Symbolism can exist in realism, but what style of drawing you're using will change what kind of symbol you'll want to use. If you look at the concept art of the creatures from Amnesia, you can tell that they all were intended to be human, but horribly twisted. The same goes for most creature designs in video games, because many of the muscle structures are based on animals that exist, or at the very least have some form of logical head placement.

[Vector]

I like your dude, but it'd look a lot more dynamic if he was turned more towards the beast, with one of his legs reaching forward or something.  The way it is right now makes it look like there's two separate figures, rather than a scene; it'd also help if you could somehow use the background to pull them together.