Well, I’ve a had a new sketch and a wallpaper waiting on the sidelines for a little while now, as I didn’t want to break up the flurry of previews just for this, but now that the First Impressions posts are over (and I had to end on such a sour note), I feel that now is the ideal time to immediately throw this out there, since hey, it’ll also cheer me up a little. So yeah: More Artwork, Hurry! (Motto Bijutsu, Isogu!) LOL
First up, its a brand new grown up Carlie!! (squee!!)
I thought she deserved a newer, better sketch. (The older one can be found on the Miscellaneous/Unsorted Page, near the bottom, as its pretty old). I’m especially impressed with this rendition of her, though I’m using the prior costume I made for her rather than inventing something wholly new again.
As I explained before, Seiken Densetsu III is one of my all time favourites because of its most excellent party creation system and 4 pronged class change possibilities. And of course, I quite often pick Carlie for my teams, though in the game, she looks much younger. She is actually 15 in the game, but being a half elf, this means she actually looks like a 10 year old. This version of her is my rendition of how she would appear at, oh, around about 24, though I toned down the puffiness of her hair in favour of curly/wavy.
You may have gathered I seem to enjoy drawing girls with excellent hats. Why? I have no idea. Personal quirk, I guess. I love hat wearing girls almost as much as I love tsunderes. In fact, a little silly fact for you: one of the (rather daft) original ideas for the name of this blog was actually “The man with H.A.T.” (Hige, Anime Obsession, Tsundere Love). Probably because that describes me. Though I don’t have a stupid Hige (beard) at the moment.
Anyway, heres a new wallpaper as well:
Yessiree, its another ToraDora wall. Whilst its slightly old news, I found the three panel colour manga about Taiga and Ryuji sharing Pocky on the left and thought it was so mind-numbingly cute and awesome that I HAD to do something with it.
I also combined it with another couple of my favourite cute Taiga X Ryuji pictures to make this, and despite the fact that it was a fairly quick job that only took a half hour or so, I’m still pretty happy with the result. Just looking at it makes me continually go “Awwww!”. I think the Palmtop Tiger and Chibi Dragon censoring really makes that strip, doesn’t it?
As always, click the images to see them bigger!
Anyways, yeah, that has cheered me up a little. Hope you enjoy the stuff, and keep tuned.
I can see that you have talent and potential to become a great artist. I think your work is detailed and has a very “complete” feeling. You put effort in your work, and it looks as if you have fun doing it.
There are a few things that you should think about when drawing anime/manga.
Some classic anatomy stuff. Anime females very rarely have such broad bodies. Neck should be thinner as well (they are usually a lot thinner!). Eyes should be located just at the beginning of the lower part of the head, rather than the top part. Ears are located on lower as well. Anime heads are really special like that. To learn to get used to draw hi quality animestyle: Exaggerate at first. Make them anorectic thin, superbig eyes, super small mouths, etc, just to get used to drawing differently, and get a new perspective on size. It is hard learning a new style.
As for perspective, pose and breasts (in this case at least) your drawing lacks “flow”. Flow is to draw everything along nicely curved invisible lines. Think of softly shaped lines that has the shape of half a circle or the J letter for example. Your drawing is making a K or H letter, which disturbs the “flow”. Flow really makes magic to artwork.
Professional artists works a lot with flow. They make everything in their composition go with it; Perspective, pose, landscape, all of it in once. The invisible lines usually end at the same spot, which is where the artist wants the observer to focus. A good rule is to avoid drawing too many lines that cross each other more than 60 degrees.
Examples, can you see the flow?:
http://www.iwatchstuff.com/2008/04/11/up-pixar-render.jpg <<< all lines here are straight put point to the middle. Do you see it?
http://www.chucksanimeshrine.com/animeblog/uploaded_images/anime_art-784319.jpg <<< a very soft S-curve. Her body, perspective, hair, wingthingy on head.. everything is curved nicely together.
I was a "good" artist, but my drawings never had that "magic", until I went on a game graphics school and learned about flow. Now my artwork has a lot more life.
Well I was just passing by and ended up here on random. I hope any of this was helpful to you.
Good luck in the future~
Hiya Oujichan, thanks for the comment! Glad to hear you like my artworks.
When you say I lack ‘flow’ you are probably quite right. My drawing originates from a technical perspective, wherein it is far better to take time and detail getting each individual element correct. It is also a medium where lines pretty much always connect at 40 to 90 degrees!
To elaborate, I do not start by drawing simple. I know most artists might begin by defining some curves, some skeletal structure, some shapes. Lay down a framework.
I do not. I start with eyes. Fully detailed. Then move out and define a face around them, go onto the hair, the neck, etc., zooming out and viewing each part as a selection in the big picture and correcting it if it doesn’t work, until I have a fully complete, solid lineart piece, whereupon I move onto shading.
Lol, its like putting together a fitted kitchen and then building a house around it, room by room, I suppose.
It is totally stupid and weird in the eyes of one of my mates (who is a more traditional artist) because it seems staggeringly complex. And it is, probably, but to me its completely managable, since I’ve always had an immense visual/spatial aptitude.
I guess to call them ‘sketches’ is actually inappropriate. They are technical drawings done in an anime style. Hahahahaha.
Also, holycrap you can’t even begin to compare my artwork to Tony Taka. That man is a god. I’m just a guy with too much time on his hands.
[…] her as one of my very first posts on the blog back in the dark ages of 2008, and gave her an update in this post in 2009. As noted in both those posts, Carlie is from Seiken Densetsu III, which I actually […]