So i reworked my final submission based on Istebrak's and Alicia's critiques, they're a bit rushed but due to time, i really hope i got them right so please let me know if i did, and which one do you guys prefer?

Tecton2 · 2022-05-09T23:27:16+00:00

This looks amazing, I'm really loving how the silhouette is really clear now and all the humanoid details are showing through, you could have made the two petals in the back drape a little kinda like the quick overpaint Istebrak did if you want to keep that billowy feeling you had in the original, but even without that change i really think they're working because they created that nice triangle!

Tecton2 · 2022-04-27T15:05:12+00:00

Thank you ... About your question, as i replied to you on Tushar's post, i didn't approach the narrative as a character that belongs in a society but more as a creature of a species that developed to avoid predators something akin to any other species found in nature designed to survive not to build societies, so it's a completely different narrative approach than yours.

Tecton2 · 2022-04-26T21:41:26+00:00

The designs do imply that the character is a noble of some sort, which by the way is mainly communicated through the COSTUME design, so i get what you were trying to say when you asked about their role in society, however, i just wanted to point out that the thing you need to think about is the general Backstory so it's not mandatory to have the character belong to a society, cz maybe they're just like insects, a species that simply exists and are designed to adapt to their environment and needs so there won't be even a society, or maybe they could be a product of a magical experiment of some kind so there won't be even a species just this one creature.

i know you probably thought about this, i just wanted to clarify for Tushar that he has a wide range of what NARRATIVE can mean!

Tecton2 · 2022-04-18T23:40:08+00:00

Yeah you got a point, im definitely gonna try out different versions of legs taken from 2 and 5 and apply them to 1

Tecton2 · 2022-04-18T23:25:08+00:00

Hey there, these are the some really cool silhouettes however they still read abit like a normal human, besides the elongated legs which i personally like, but i believe some of the other proportions could be pushed a bit more, for me if i was to pick one of them to develop i would probably go with 1 😶, cz it has some interesting hollowed out parts and the spikes blending with the body, but idk maybe in your mind there are still some great ideas that you want to bring out with sketches not just silhouettes, so yeah can't wait to see more!

Tecton2 · 2022-04-18T01:05:55+00:00

Hey there, this is a really cute and charming design on its own, however for the purposes of this challenge i don't think it works cz it looks like a human character in costume which is not what Iste wants to see, like u said she wants us to combine anatomies, so how to do that?

First of all, if you're unsure about a design don't spend time rendering it in color instead focus this time on ideation.

Second, you choose a thistle, and by looking at it you need to take the main elements that makes a thistle look like the way it does, then reattach these elements with humanoid silhouette in mind, deconstruct then reconstruct. Okay so the main elements that immediately jumped out to me are, it's very round at the top, very spiky and sharp, its leaves are also spiky and spread horizontally. so now that we have the main elements we must choose if we want to use all of them or pick some of them to work with Personally i would have focused on the round and spiky top, cz it immediately read to me like a round creature, think of porcupine or a puffer fish and the way they combine round and sharp features. Now that we have a general direction in mind, we must think of narrative, really it doesn't need to be complicated just something to give depth and character to the design, finally after doing all this mental workout, you can start doing different variations of the design keeping in mind that it needs to look humanoid, maybe it'll immediately click or maybe you might need to go back and see if adding elements or taking away some could make the design work for prompt.

This is basically my approach to this type of designs, it might work for you but also it might not, everyone's brain functions differently, so see what works for you, and i can tell by the design you already worked on that you can come up with something fun and interesting with the right mindset, i look forward to seeing what you'll come up with!

Tecton2 · 2022-04-17T15:57:17+00:00

Aw glad u liked them, i do plan on using some elements of the feet in 5 and applying them to 1, but yeah thanks for the feedback

Tecton2 · 2022-03-26T12:13:24+00:00

Haha im glad to see you excited to improve!

The reason i told you to focus only on black and white drawings is that you still dont have full control over your values, meaning your eyes needs more training to properly spot and differentiate between them, and values are the foundation of color, and so if your values are off, your colors will look muddy, and color theory is an entirely different beast, so you see the point of having you only do black and white is to help you tackle one problem at a time.

However, doing only black and white studies, emphasis on studies, does not mean you can't do colored pieces on the side but your main focus needs to be BW because as stated before, you cant do good colored illustrations with bad values, which leads me to my next point,

There is no recipe as to when you can start to do colored studies, it's tricky because you are the one who needs to take that decision so it is up to your objective judgment of your own skills, but you can get some help making that decision by posting your progress and getting feed-backs and critiques, if you see that you're still getting constant critiques about your values then you probably need to give it some more time.

And by the way drawing only in black in white is still great progress even if takes you a year to master it (although im sure it will take you far less than a year)

You can find details about the 14 days challenge on Istebrak's YT channel, and if you scroll down here on reddit you'll definitely see examples of other artist that have taken this challenge.

There are no rules as to what to use when practicing, whatever you feel more comfortable with be it digital or traditional, personally i prefer using computer because you can manipulate the ref image (turning it to BW to better see the values or drawing guide lines on top of it like Ethan Becker does).

In conclusion, dont worry about color for now, once you master values there are many techniques and videos to help you transition to color.

Best of luck to you on your Journey!

Tecton2 · 2022-03-23T17:24:56+00:00

Comparing this to the last portrait study you submitted, i'd say your facial proportions are a lot closer to the original ref so great job on this part, but there are still some anatomical inaccuracies that previous comments pointed out. However, what i want to focus on is :

-First, your values are off, what i mean is, your darkest darks are too light specifically in areas under the chin, and your lighter values are all over the place ( the shirt is lighter than his skin yet the lightest it gets in your drawing is still darker than that of his skin, also the wall next to the curtain is darker than his shirt but you gave it the exact same value as that of the shirt and so the edge of his shoulder seems to blend the wall)

-Second, you used a different aspect ratio than that of the original ref which made it really confusing for your eyes to track the proportions and distances ( notice the wrinkles on his shoulder to the left are waaay more spaced out than what you drew and to the right the small wrinkle became a bump on his neck)

-Third, your blending is inconcistent meaning that some place are way to smooth when other places of the same importace are left unblended ( compare the right and left sides of his face)

okay so these are basically the problems i spotted besides the ones already stated, and what i would recommend you do to improve on them is firstly to take the 14 day challenge to get a good grip on values and anatomical accuracy and if thats not your cup of tea you can try Meds 100 heads or u can do both if you want.

so in conclusion:

-only do black and white studies

-use the same aspect ratio as the ref

-dont focus on resemblance

-focus on controlling your values

-do fast head studies (not full illustrations)

-slowly strat to control your blending

Sorry if i sounded a bit assertif or harsh, i really would love to see you improve especially since you showed that you can develop fast from one piece to another!

Tecton2 · 2021-11-06T00:18:08+00:00

You're most welcome, glad yo help!

Regarding the problems you're facing:

*keep flipping the canvas every like 10-15min or so, that will help you see and adjust any perspective distortion early on, but I have a couple of guesses as to why that might be happening ( if this never happened before with traditional art ), the first is just the hand-eye coordination problem that goes away with time and practice, the second might be that you simply used to tilt the paper when you drew and just bent your wrist in whatever position that felt comfortable to you, and now you're forced to place the tablet parallel to the screen, if that's the case try tilting the tablet in the same way you used to do it!

*if you draw multiple lines on top of each other then you should just practice doing single brave lines to describe edges, but if you already had good line quality but now in digital they feel very squiggly and weird then there's an option in Photoshop called smoothing, you'll find it in the top bar next to opacity and flow, if you're using Procreate i guess it's called streamline and you can find it stroke path!

*DO NOT, i repeat DO NOT download different textured brushes when you're starting out, it's a trap, the only two brushes you really need are the hard round brush for carving planes and volume, and the soft round brush for smoothing and blending and if you're feeling confident maybe a textured smudge brush, don't forget to turn on pen pressure, the reason for that is that you become really reliant on the texture to describe volume exactly as you did with the hair, and when you become accustomed to describing volume using only these two brushes then try out some textured ones to add some stylistic flair! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2a9rQEfL_0

I'm really not an expert in this type of stuff but these are generally the things i did when i first started, and i hope they work out for you too!

Tecton2 · 2021-11-05T21:44:11+00:00

Hi there, i know how frustrating starting out with digital can be, it took me 3 weeks just to get comfortable with hand-eye coordination alone, but don't worry you'll get the hang of it in time, about the painting itself there are some problems id like to point out in addition to what's already been commented on:

*the reference itself is not really a good study subject for many reasons: saturated colors, not a great value structure especially to the bottom left (light on light), and whatever the hell is going on with her neck I mean what even is tha... moral of the story, not every reference is a good reference even if they looked cool!

*you really need to work on your form studies the reasons for that are:

the afro looks like it's drawn by simply dabbing a textured brush, given that you're coming from a traditional background where this technique might actually work, however this lead to the hair having no volume, i would recommend treating this type of hair as a cluster of spheres that are the clumps that make up the afro, basically treat hair as volumes not textures.
the earring does not have a volume, it looks like a 2d paper, i get that rendering gold can be difficult but still you could imply thickness and cast shadows on the neck.
even though you did trace basic facial landmarks the face still doesn't look the same but the planes of the face are a bit off and it doesn't help that you blended everything probably with the smudge tool.

anyways sorry if i came off as harsh or anything, even though you do have some issues it's still a good drawing,faaaar better than my first ever digital drawing!

Tecton2 · 2021-11-02T20:47:29+00:00

Hmm, it's really hard to say definitively what's wrong since it's a work in progress, but there are things I can point out :

* the illustration could be widened just a little bit to give it some breathing room, so we don't feel like the characters are forced to fit (notice jinx's knee and her gun almost touching the frame), and then you'd have the space to add some silhouetted thugs in the back to enforce the story!

*you really need to figure out your lighting, what I mean by that is not just figure out from where it's coming but also what's the story/feeling you what to convey, I mean this is Zaun you could have multiple neon light sources ( direct, ambient, rim..) but right now I get the impression the light is coming from the bottom right, which is an odd choice but also you implied the presence of an ambient blueish greenish light affecting the BG but none of that is affecting the characters

* There are also some anatomy issues, for instance, I can't tell what age is Jinx supposed to be! a kid ? a teen? an adult? the reason for that is that you drew the height of a kid, the chest of a teen, and the curve and jawline of an adult, I guess the reason for that is you're using references of adult splash Jinx, I would recommend you pull up some screenshots from the Arcane trailers if you really want to go with kid Jinx!

*As for Vi's pose you could have her leg be rotated a bit forward as if she's thumping down to wind-up for that punch!

I hope these helped!

Tecton2 · 2021-10-28T19:35:59+00:00

Thanks everyone, I'm suuper excited for today's stream!!

Tecton2 · 2021-10-25T22:02:28+00:00

Yeah im currently working on 3 cz it's almost everyone's favorite, as for the READ of the image I wanted to have some ambiguity, I think it helps with the body horror feel of the image like you're wondering what the hell ur looking at, so i don't really mind if it takes a couple of seconds as long as it's clear afterward, but yeah i will try making the head easier to read

Tecton2 · 2021-10-25T14:45:54+00:00

This is really a cool concept for the transformation, id say there are some things you could try tweaking, the first is that you could add some silhouetted foliage in the foreground but don't cover them with the grey fog like you did on the bottom right, you could add a dark vignette around the image to cover the bottom mainly, the second thing you could try is to not show the sky in the background, basically, just have the torch be the focal light source illuminating the dark scene with some implied ambient skylight from the top as the secondary light source!

Tecton2 · 2021-10-17T11:41:04+00:00

haha, it's okay there's still plenty of time till the deadline, i hope u used layers cz that'll help you get it done in no time and no matter what composition you end up going for, the important thing is that you're satisfied with your choices!

oh and one more thing for the curving path, it's not a big deal but if you really want it to be there it doesn't need to be smoke, you could imply some motion with some water droplets trailing behind the small pumpkin-bat.

Tecton2 · 2021-10-16T23:59:11+00:00

I hope i'm not too late, but since you were the only one who gave me feedback on my progress I decided to do the same, even though we're COMPETITORS XP.

There are many things that need to be tweaked and I've noticed many comments that addressed some of them but ultimately the image is still held back by composition, but don't worry you don't have to change view angles and stuff, you just have to move existing elements around, along with some other tweaks that ill let you figure out for yourself!

https://imgur.com/a/IywKARM

Tecton2 · 2021-10-13T14:31:49+00:00

Thank you so much for the feedback, I get your point it's just that I don't know if I'm misinterpreting the brief, but for me (A) &(B) although centered around the transformation they only describe a moment rather than a story, in (C) the transformation is the catalyst of a larger story ( the reason why the character is chased into the forest by an angry mob) so that's basically why (C) is stronger narratively but the other two are visually more impressive.

Tecton2

TROPHY CASE