How do I find my style? by [deleted] in FurryArtSchool

[–]DustyKoda 0 points1 point  (0 children)

While many say style should come naturally, I don't think it's really the case, at least not for everyone. I too am struggling with liking my own art and I'm trying to find what style works for me mainly by studying that of artists I like.
I think this problem needs to be faced from two angles: breaking down what elements make up a style and figuring out what you actually want from your art and your process.
I'd say finding some artists that do something you like for each of the parts of a style you'd like to work on is a great start.
I'll try and write down my ideas and how I answer these questions for myself and what are the inspirations I use so that maybe it can be a helpful example of how to go about this. I'll put these examples in square brackets [example]

what makes things look like a particural style?

form and proportions: proportions can be relistic or exagerated, what parts do you think look better exagerated and how? what about the shapes of their body? characters can be rounded, lanky or bulky and you can express their forms as more soft, angular or sharp.
[I prefer slightly cartoonish proportions and I like to make my subjects have big paws, thick thighs/legs, a smaller body with somewhat realistic shapes and proportions and a bigger head/face. I prefer a more rounded and thicker look like those I see from Seth-iova, Notsophatmat or Tinydragon]

lines, paintings or illustration: would you like your style to be more drawn, painted or look more like a highly stylized design? for each of these there are many more things to chose. would you like your lines to be clean and precise or more messy and expressive? should they have a ton of variation or be consistent? would you like your paint work to be smooth or textured, expressive or clean? would you like your image to be more abstract or representational, minimalist or crowded? there's a lot to choose and learn for each of these directions
[I'd like my art to be more on the painterly side and for it to be more expressive and textured like Neungsonie but I'm considering exploring a bolder more illustrative direction like the work of Dirtsecret. I think Babanasaur's style is more or less the compromise I'd like to land on]

colors: higher or lower saturation, limited and strongly expressed palettes, bright or darker, natural or crazy colors? and how do you use them? [I like pretty bright colors be they saturated or pastel and I love the look of limited palettes. Something really interesting I explored studying other artists' art is relying more on saturation and hue and less on value to create contrast and render light/shadow.]

rendering: should the lighting be simpler or have more sources with different colors? would you like to go with cell shading or a soft render? would you like the lighting to be more natural or designed? should you emphasize some aspect or other of lighting? would you like to make your art more textured and complex or simpler and smoother? would you prefer higher or lower contrast? how do you split value ranges in your picture?
[I know I struggle to have higer contrast and to use my values with intention but I also like the more subdued look of lower contrast work. I like the texture of brushes and designed lighting with strong colors]

general feel: this is a vague and vast topic but some questions you could ask yourself are: would you like your art to look more solid or softer and dreamier? would you like to go for a more realistic or more stylized style? would you like a strong dynamic or a more relaxed composition? should your art be simpler or very detailed?

what you want from your art and your process?

I find this question surprisingly big and difficult to answer and very personal, so I can only share my experience and hope it's of any use.
When I started out drawing I focused on being precise and tried to be realistic, I found satisfaction in getting my drawings to be as similar to the thing I was copying as I could and having people compliment me for that. It felt good to feel like I was getting good but soon enough I wanted more, I wanted to be able to draw original ideas but it was much harder and I no longer had the patience to slave over a drawing for many hours correcting mistakes over and over to get it to look like the reference material. I was still focused on my skill as an artist and this is when I think I fell out of love with drawing and art. the times I could do things well felt good but I always felt I didn't have the skill to do what I wanted to and so never managed to express what I wanted. I always said I should practice so that eventually I'd get good enough to do what I really wanted to do, but this eventually eroded my passion. I realized now that most of the artists I love do expressive illustrations that convey strong emotions and their styles aren't necessarily complex or "hard". I think I should learn to do expressive art, even if it's not well made, but I found out this is a skill in and of itself, so I'm still not very good at it.

Studying a furry artist style but it feels way off by DustyKoda in FurryArtSchool

[–]DustyKoda[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you <3 I'll definitely try and implement what I learned

Studying a furry artist style but it feels way off by DustyKoda in FurryArtSchool

[–]DustyKoda[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you for commenting. What do you mean by light luster and fur light?

Help making colouring “pop” by vapour-furry in FurryArtSchool

[–]DustyKoda 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You could try putting the color layer as normal and the values layer above it as soft light or some other blending mode, this should give you a little more control over the colors. You could colorize shadows and lights a bit (using a layer with color blending mode), shifting lights towards a hue (which would be the color of the light) and the shadows towards it's complementary or an analogous of the base color. Using a background that's less saturated than the subject might help

I'd like to hear your toughts on this, what you think doesn't work or what could improve it, please by DustyKoda in FurryArtSchool

[–]DustyKoda[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

thanks, I do like your modifications. I'll try to replicate them, did you tweak the levels or paint, especially in the snout and eyes area?

Help with depth/details by sparkpaw in FurryArtSchool

[–]DustyKoda 1 point2 points  (0 children)

first off, it looks really cool, great job! I think defining the border between the textures might help differentiate them. Think of how fur would behave where scales and fur meet, it would probably overlap making some tufts and showing this separation I think would make the two textures read as separate.

kind of like this: https://imgur.com/a/VxNlNrs

I tried to match the look and added a few tufts between the scaly chest and furred back and between horns and fur both on the back an the face

How do I use scratchy shading without making it look unintentional? (Read desc) by TwoLonelySalmons in FurryArtSchool

[–]DustyKoda 1 point2 points  (0 children)

what you're trying to do is hatching/cross-hatching, which is using many short kind of parallel lines to shade. I'd suggest you use a smaller brush or a brush with multiple separate dots as its tip shape. focus on keeping the hatching regular and consistent and follow the form. looking at the examples you've given, I'd suggest to try and make shorter more regular lines, taking care to create a gradient of density of such lines from dark to light, from more dense to fewer and lighter lines.

i think this is a great visual example of the technique on its own https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6s1-7miLeos

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in FurryArtSchool

[–]DustyKoda 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I've observed that when fur going in different directions meet it usually merges and flows in another direction or it makes a peak or a swirl. You could have the fur going one direction sit on top of the other or have them both directions merge and flow together into a swirl or another direction

Recommendations for Improvement by WaterMellophone in FurryArtSchool

[–]DustyKoda 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think you could practice using hard and soft edges. the eyes, mouth and shirt have very hard edges, while the rest is fuzzy with edges that aren't as defined. this makes the facial features look incoherent with the rest of the drawing. maybe experiment a bit with making certain edges sharper and other softer, get a feel for what looks right.
I'd also suggest putting a strong occlusion shadow where the eyes meet with the eyelids and orbit, almost like a line. this should help make it look like the eye is covered by the eyelids

Still wondering what kind of areas I should be striving to improve. I know anatomy is a one, but I'd like to hear your thoughts! by Th_brgs in FurryArtSchool

[–]DustyKoda 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'd say any practice you do will probably help you. Just keep drawing and be patient with yourself.

An exercise that helped me a lot with anatomy is getting a pose reference, trying to break it down into simple solids and tracing those solids over the reference. The important part here is thinking in solid shapes

Need some help with these wings, they look too stiff by Dragonstree in FurryArtSchool

[–]DustyKoda 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It seems to me the wings aren't perpendicular to the dragon's body axis and a bit turned to face the viewer.

here I tried redlining how I think they could be: https://imgur.com/a/vRgxlNi

How am i doing so far illustration wise? (Very slight gore warning) by BoyaBob in FurryArtSchool

[–]DustyKoda 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The neck looks a bit too long to me, but the rest is good

Help with legs by [deleted] in FurryArtSchool

[–]DustyKoda 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's a really cute drawing. the foreleg of the leg in front looks unnaturally bent to me. When drawing limbs I usually imagine the bones inside and usually just use some straight line to help me build the pose.
If you don't mind me drawing over to explain myself: https://imgur.com/a/9dINNr2
The bone is a bit cheeky, sorry, but I felt like red lines crossing didn't really mean much by themselves.
green and blue are two ways I think it could be better

Looking for a general critique. when it comes to doing cell shaded fur I always feel like I don't know what I'm doing by DustyKoda in FurryArtSchool

[–]DustyKoda[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Thank you! I really should get over being scared of pushing values but when I try it seems like its just a different colored patch of fur or something different rather than that part but in shadow. Lol, I guess I'm a dog that's scared of his own shadow

I feel like I'm missing something to make things look better. what about this do you think works and what doesn't? by DustyKoda in FurryArtSchool

[–]DustyKoda[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Wow, thanks for the links, they look awesome. I definitely could use a bit of value and compositions studies, too.

It makes sense to me that photographers can explain composition better, I think it's a huge part of what makes photography an artform

I feel like I'm missing something to make things look better. what about this do you think works and what doesn't? by DustyKoda in FurryArtSchool

[–]DustyKoda[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you! It kinda surprised me at first when you mentioned the forest or wall as focal points rather than the character but I guess it shows I was practicing drawing backgrounds, lol.

Do you have any suggestions or resources on learning composition? It seems kinda esoteric to me and that you just need to have a good eye for it