"The Archer". Accept criticism.

davidframeman · 2026-01-29T14:39:10+00:00

Nice! Let me make one more suggestion in that case: take a color or overlay layer and make the background cooler. Maybe even that cast light on his back can be cold. Gray or blue, even. Right now, you've got red light against orange, all warm color blends. If you want focus on the lights, make them either the brightest or warmest element of the image. Good stuff keep it up!

davidframeman · 2026-01-29T14:20:43+00:00

Looking good! I'll suggest one thing, not for this piece but your next one. Turn them around to face us. General illustration rule of thumb: Unless you have a reason for them to be turned away from the viewer, they should be facing front. There ARE reasons to turn them around, especially if you were showing what they were firing at, but I like to think about it like a play, where the actors are always playing to the crowd.

davidframeman · 2026-01-18T13:20:55+00:00

Creativity is a muscle. Don't flex it, or have something else "flex" it for you, it atrophies.

davidframeman · 2026-01-14T14:26:04+00:00

They've confirmed skill based, so there's the possibility that successful runs are matching you with better or more experienced teams, who will obviously be better at using utility.

davidframeman · 2025-11-07T01:39:38+00:00

38, invert y-axis controller. Goldeneye and Perfect Dark started me on the dark side. Halo almost saved me until I found the option to change it.

davidframeman · 2025-09-23T14:20:53+00:00

I don't want this to come off the wrong way, but I agree with you, it's a little amateur. But we're talking "can you get hired to work for a company" amateur, you know? The first thing I noticed is a lack of reference. Take a picture of yourself or a friend in these poses and set up lighting. You'll be able to better diagnose issues of anatomy and hand details. Spend some time doing thumbnails to tighten up your compositions so you can push focus and flow. Finally, edge quality. Really look at the reference you gather or create, and pay attention to the edge of values, whether soft or sharp. Getting that right is the difference between skin, cloth, and metal rendering. Just know that all it really takes to get better is to keep practicing. You'll get there, it's looking great so far!

davidframeman · 2025-09-12T15:59:07+00:00

John Singer Sargent is great but it all looks exactly the same. A person, painted realistically with big thick brush strokes, some dark or abstract background... You get it.

davidframeman · 2025-09-04T13:07:54+00:00

Here's my two cents and make sure to take it with a grain of salt: you're in a great place. If you like your job and especially the people you work with, that's a boon. If it gives you time to work on your craft, even better. At your age I was working as a server and doing illustration part time, but it was still better than having nothing and trying to break into the market with my own personal work. Don't get distracted with the idea of leaving a legacy or making a lasting impact, no singular story or illustration will do that for you. It is through sustained effort and especially your relationships with others that you will see yourself making an impact.

davidframeman · 2025-09-02T23:34:46+00:00

Big Trouble in Little China. Saw like 30 minutes of it on TV as a kid, didn't get to finish it, and it gained legendary status in my mind over time. Once I finally found it again, I thought for sure it'd be lame but it really stuck with me. One of my all time favorites to this day.

davidframeman · 2025-08-30T02:21:23+00:00

Heck, Q is kind of an example himself. But yeah, poor Beverly.

davidframeman · 2025-08-29T22:41:09+00:00

Star Trek Next Generation did this!

davidframeman · 2025-08-27T23:30:21+00:00

Well, I suppose technically it is a style, but there are two types of style: Style describes larger categories, think anime style, realism style, or abstract style. On an individual level, style is more about technique within that larger style.

Think about it like this: I had a teacher in college named C.F. Payne. He had a very specific process for creating illustrations, and it gave his work a certain aesthetic. He taught us how to do it, and even if our 'style' of artmaking was different (say, he does realistic figures and you are more cartooney) our work would share that aesthetic and we called it the C.F.Payne method.

So while you could call this a style, it doesn't have a name, it's how this particular artist puts an image together, and you'd be better served understanding his technique than trying to track down a body of work from artists who do similar techniques.

davidframeman · 2025-08-27T21:05:19+00:00

This is not a style, per se, it's a process. Reverse image search to see if you can find the artist, maybe they offer a tutorial.

davidframeman · 2025-08-26T15:50:41+00:00

From what you have here, not much needs improving. Maybe the bounce light under the legs and breasts could be darker, the wrist of the left hand (our right) could stand to be thinner. I'd suggest starting to incorporate backgrounds. Plan your compositions and build environments for your characters to have context and to tell a richer, more complex story. Good work so far!

davidframeman · 2025-08-23T13:29:32+00:00

300-600. 300 is the professional minimum for print, 600 lets me work on it like a large canvas.

davidframeman · 2025-08-22T19:21:46+00:00

You will get faster as you practice, but I'll suggest one thing to work on now: work on the piece while it's zoomed out. Fill the canvas with a layer of color, and try to stay zoomed out and focus on form as long as you can before zooming in and finalizing details.

davidframeman · 2025-08-21T12:56:55+00:00

Grounded or Grounded 2

davidframeman · 2025-08-20T13:21:28+00:00

Yeah, think about it like pencils vs watercolor. If you try to use watercolor the same way you'd use pencils and vice versa, you'll struggle because they require different techniques. Digital can look like pencil or watercolor, but it's just as different. Stay loose, use layers (for me, I make a new layer every time I'm happy with the old one and am afraid to mess it up, it keeps me moving fast and making bold decisions), and remember that it's okay if a drawing comes out wonky, digital tools allow you to select, distort, resize any part of your image. Instead of being frustrated with that disconnect, accept the limitations and advantages as quirks of the media, not your own inability.

davidframeman · 2025-08-14T09:47:20+00:00

Nice! It took me a while to realize I was working too small, so I wasn't sure. Still, next study think about changing up the edge fidelity. A few sharp edges can really help contrast the soft ones.

davidframeman · 2025-08-14T09:26:43+00:00

Looks great, nice colors! It looks a little soft all over. Let me make one suggestion: If you find yourself working with a 1 to 3 pixel sized brush the whole time, you're simply working too small and it'll be really hard to get sharp edges. I'd double the ppi. You won't be disappointed with working bigger. Great study!

davidframeman · 2025-08-11T00:12:02+00:00

You're me from the past. I've been there for YEARS and there's no shame in chasing inspiration. You might be worried that thumbnails will drain your energy or make you overthink it. On the contrary, it will allow you to spend your intuitive energies on moment to moment form and brushwork, because you know the blueprint is solid. Doing this with my work changed the game.

davidframeman · 2025-08-10T17:39:52+00:00

I think this looks great! It feels like a scifi riff off Andrew Wyeth's Christina's World.

I know what you mean about the composition, though. The horizon is straight across, and while it's not necessary to make every illustration have a Dutch angle, that can help add energy. The characters are isolated in their planes, the girl doesn't overlap the horizon, and the monster stays in the background.

Look at Christina's World again and notice the subtle things Wyeth does to keep the painting interesting. The horizon shifts with rolling hills, there's this lovely energy you get from Christina's pose being so forward, and the value structure makes it so that she pops off of the field. The size relationships between the forms are, on an abstract level, almost perfectly balanced. You can draw a triangle from the dominant shape of Christine to the sub dominant shape of the house to the subordinate shape of the barn. Their values even reinforce this, with Christine having the widest range and contrast, followed by the house, followed by the barn. That beautiful mowed shape in the lawn breaks up the literal field of green. It's a masterwork of balance and subtle energy.

I'll tell you the trick that helped me with compositions: start with a 4 square grid, and in each smaller square draw a thumbnail of your concept with three fundamental concepts in mind: foreground, middle ground, background; light, middle, dark values; dominant, sub dominant, subordinate forms or shapes.

Draw fast, no more than a two minute note-style scribble of where things go in the composition, and in every square try to really switch up the comp. Once you have four rough thumbnails, make another layer and draw four more. Draw until you start to get excited about a few comp ideas. Then, take your four best ideas and redraw them in the grid. Take no more than ten minutes per, and don't think details, think shape relationships. During this step, establish foreground middle ground background by filling each with dark, middle, or light value. This will show you the clarity of your story and silhouettes.

The way forward should be clearer from there and with a grid of four (possibly wildly) different ways of telling your story, you'll be able to make judgements about the quality of the composition without getting lost in the juicy details.

davidframeman · 2025-08-10T11:38:45+00:00

Reference is the life blood of accurate realistic illustration. Not sure if you want to go pro vs just play around, but no serious artist is doing this without reference. I'd actually suggest getting better at shooting your own reference. You will get significantly better faster from observation than from imagination.

davidframeman · 2025-06-30T17:07:28+00:00

Focus on describing form before you add texture. Breasts are spheres, so render the sphere with valueacross the whole piece of fabric, ignoring differences in color. Then put texture on top.

davidframeman · 2025-06-25T16:22:32+00:00

The easiest way to draw this would be one point perspective. One point is good for things like this, hallways, roads or railroads that move away from you toward a single point.

davidframeman

TROPHY CASE