SilentAngel's Art Dump (Warning: Image Heavy - 12 pics)

SilentAngel · Last edited by SilentAngel on Mon Nov 28, 2005 3:42 am; edited 1 time in total

I've done quite a lot of art in the last...say...5 or so months, so I thought I'd show you guys some
of it. Comments, worship-praise (yeah right Wink

), material gifts (*snigger*) and constructive (not
destructive Pissed off!

) criticism all welcome. (Though I won't pass on the gifts/praise at all Big grin

).

And now, to the art! (Warning: There's 12 images, I really should have split this into 2 threads,
but eh. Too late now Raspberry!

)

#1 - Postcard Contest Entry: This was a CG I did over the course of roughly 2 weeks before
the deadline. The idea was to draw the two anime convention's mascots in a postcard sized
image. It's kinda a rushed job plus an experiment using Painter, and I've never drawn an
original character as fanart before, but eh, I ended up getting one of the runners-up with it.
Thanks to the few who voted for it, by the way. Done June 30 - July 14.

#2 - Sakura: This picture was inspired by my then recent introduction to DDR. I liked the
song Sakura (still do), and drew a picture to slightly resemble the girl in the background of
this song. Kinda a quick sketch, just to see what I could do in roughly 15mins. Done 30th
September.

#3 - Kimono Portrait: This one was kinda a rushed job too, but it was mainly experimenting with
a new technique I learnt in regards to shading. Plus I've never drawn a girl in a kimono before,
so I decided I'd give it a go. Done 7th October.

#4 - 5 Minute Challenge: Someone challenged me to draw a picture in less than 5 minutes and
this was the result. The shading's kinda off, but that's what happens when you spend half of
the 5mins trying to figure out what to draw Wink

. Done 9th October.

#5 - Portrait2 - Coloured Version: I hadn't used coloured pencils since the Characterisation
Contest so I decided to give them a go again. One person described this picture as "cute". Done
14th October.

#6 - 10 Minute Challenge: Same person as #4 asked me to draw something in 10 minutes and
this is what turned out. I don't like this one much, there's something which bugs me about it.
I think it's the right eye. Done 16th October.

#7 - 15 Minute Challenge: Dissatisfied with the previous picture, straight after it, I drew this
one. Tried to draw her on another angle, and tried to add as much detail to the picture as
possible in the 15 minutes I had. Didn't help that I initially drew another picture, and erased
it about 8 minutes in @_@. So technically this one took less time than the previous one. Done
16th October.

#8 - 10 Minute Pen Portrait: The scene: A boring lecture at class. My materials: The margin of
my lecture notes and a blue pen. Time Left: 10 minutes until the end of that class. I decided
to draw a realistic face whilst only half listening to the lecture. I think I did OK considering
I drew it entirely from memory and no chance to erase the picture. Done 20th October.

#9 - Azura Rose - Mystic Sorceress: Another pose picture, but I stumbled across an old
Sailormoon picture and decided to recreate the pose with one of my characters instead.
This picture took me roughly 30mins to complete. The only beef I have with this picture is
the fact that her right arm is a bit too short. Done 21st October.

#10 - Magic Field Attack: Decided to try another unconventional perspective trick and drew
the entire picture looking downwards at the character. Then tried with adding a light effect
to the staff. This is really my first attempt at drawing a picture where the hand is really close
to the "camera". Done 30th October.

#11 - Brown And Blue: Yet another long day at class with a three hour lecture, bah. So I decide
to multitask whilst writing lecture notes and drawing at the same time. It's done on the inside
back cover of a writing pad I had, hence the brown background. Done with pen, so no
erasing allowed Raspberry!

, plus did it almost entirely cross-hatched. Done 31st October.

#12 - Fire Swirl: This is a picture of a girl just about to close her eyes and summon energy for
an elemental attack. It was mainly an experiment in shading and clothing wrinkles, as well
as drawing the outfit billowing out beside her. Drawn 6th November.

There's a couple more pictures I could have added, but 12 is enough, plus most of the others
are only half finished, or I'm intending to CG them, or they're contest entries which aren't
quite done. And please guys, if you're gonna make destructive comments about hating the
image just because it's anime/manga styled, don't even bother wasting your time. If you
don't like this style of art, don't bother bashing it. I respect your opinion that perhaps you
don't like the style I draw in, but it's no justification as to why you have to bash a picture.

Haha, I've probably lost most of you, so technically I could say what I liked here...
Thanks for taking the time to look at the piccies, by the way. Happy

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Ssalamanderr · Posted: Sun Nov 06, 2005 8:59 pm Post subject:

Just some general criticisms:
I think the heads are too big for the bodies on nearly all of these pics. All the characters have nearly ridicoulously skinny bodies. Also the heads seem a little far forward on the neck.

Most of them look like they have no wrists... the arm just ends in a hand.

I think you need more shading, but maybe that's just my personal taste.

I think you did a good job on the clothing though, and the hands look pretty good despite the lack of wrists. #7 and #10 are my personal favourites, they're a lot more dynamic.
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Moogle1 · Posted: Sun Nov 06, 2005 9:46 pm Post subject:

I agree with Surlaw on this one. All of your faces look the same. Some variety would do you a lot of good.
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Sparoku · Posted: Mon Nov 07, 2005 8:51 pm Post subject:

Those look better than anything I can do(yet). But the girl's hand in pic #11 looks kinda like a guys hand to me.

Other than that, I have no problem with your drawings. Please post more of your work when you get a chance.
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LeRoy_Leo · Posted: Mon Nov 07, 2005 9:57 pm Post subject:

Amazingly, I took some time and looked through all of this work, and I have to say that it is pretty impressive.

before I get into specifics, some general things I DON'T like are the facial proportions. I can't complain about style, but I have to say that I think the expression of every one of them (The expression in the eyes) is relatively the same. The exceptions would be #2, #7, and #10.

I also believe that you are great with color and you should work more with it. I know how hard it is to make every picture in color; how good art looks in black and white and how much work it takes to use color. However, and I am sure you know first hand, when professionals review an artistic port folio, color and variety are the keys to winning their hearts.

Moving on:
#1: I saw this when you first made it, and I think I voted on it. I may have tried giving you some advice too, but I don't think I was ready then.
The coloring and depth is very nice. I love the late day glow all around, and the ocean in the back almost looks like a photograph. I'd be Damned if it wasn't, actually.
The biggest problem I have is the arms and hands in this. The arm muscles seem bunched/scrunched, making her arm really fat looking. The hand furthest from the viewer doesn't seem proportional to the hand closest to the viewer.
Painter is a gorgeous program. I really need to try it out.

#2: The expression is nice, and like I said above, a bit different from most of the rest, which is one great thing. I also love the simplicity of the image. It's got it's details, but it's not decked out, as it shouldn't be. I have no major problems with this picture, except that the shading of the side of her face that you tried to shade is a little too light. Not much contrast and you lost the effect. Or maybe it's my monetor..?

#3 It's hard to tell exactly what this so-called "new technique" is. What is it? Shading? haw! I kid.
The cloth folds and depth is significant here. And when I say depth, I mean the shading is good. The flow of the cloth is certainly there, and it makes this image interesting. The katana is a little weak looking, though; Like a wet noodle. It also doesn't take much space. You might as well have left it out, or made it look sturdier and more prominant to the picture.

#4 For a five minute picture, this isn't bad at all. The face looks a lot more prominent. I think I see a chin forming. :p
did your challenger draw something too? If so, tell us who won. If not, tell the person that they're a CHEAP SKATE!

#5 As I told you, you work very well with color. I think you've given me a few pointers with color in the past, even. If only color wasn't such a pain. It's fun, but it bites a chunk out of your time, I know. Are there three colors or just two colors in the highlighting of the hair? I see three, but that just might be two colors overlapping. It looks pretty sweet.
By the way, the eyes sort of look dead, or tired, or something. Just a little nit pick I see...

#6 I sort of think the new ribbons in her hair look cool, but it's more-or-less the same, old, Sailor moon/Japanese school chick clone. Sailor Jupiter, if I'm not mistaken. The flow of the ribbon is a little stiff, like it's hanging. The folds are getting better.

#7 This is one which I thought was different. The new veiwpoint/angle was a good idea. A step in the variety direction, or what ever you want to call it. Kudos. The outfit she wears seems to lie against her body, like it's painted on her. not that I don't like that *drool*. I think you could have given the collar a bit more of a rise, at least.

#8 Pens are awesome tools. The depth looks marvelous. The eyes are creeping me out, though. It's good, though, that you didn't use the same style this time.

#9 I need to study the way she holds her staff. It's nearly perfect. I'm not sure what's going on here with the dress, though. The skirt portion looks like it has three pieces to it. However, kudos on the cloth folds again. The angle on her waist sort of fooled me for a second there, too. She's got the wide hips that women come programed with, but without depth, it looks like she doesn't. Theres barely traces of an angle. I looked at the upper body to find that out.

#10 This really pops out at me for a few reasons. The veiwpoint you mentioned (is more of an upclose view than a downwards view) is almost 3D. Depth is a given, even without shading. The emotion of this image is most likely the best of this bunch. Overall, very dynamic.

#11 As a side note; I realize I'm a total freak for commenting on every little aspect I could find in each of these... Anyway, this girl's expression is very listless. However, I appreciate the fact that you added a background to this image. It's a nice portrait because of the atmosphere. Isn't cross-hatching awesome? I can't keep my mind on one style of shading, though. I envy you for that ability.

#12 How dark... The expression is souless again, but I assume that this was intended. The things happening in this illustration (whatever they are) are dynamic in of themselves. The Dress flows very neatly (and I am sure you are getting tired of me saying that over and over), but even MORE neatly than the previous pics. I guess I can't mention everything good about this picture without being redundant, so I will get to what I think can be improved. The elements of the artwork are good as they are, except I think this would have looked a lot nicer if there was a black background, or something. The contrast would tripple the emphasis on the character and the lights around them, I believe.

You've been very busy indeed. I hope I didn't make you start drawing during my little rant... That would be both good and bad. Keep it up. You're doing great.
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SilentAngel · Posted: Wed Nov 16, 2005 3:19 pm Post subject:

Thanks for the kind comments and constructive criticism guys.
To answer/comment a few things (that I didn't do earlier):

SSalamanderr: I've always had trouble with heads being too big @_@. I gotta learn how to draw them smaller without sacrificing details. Also, my scanner's kinda light so the shading doesn't come out as dark as I'd like. It's kinda a shame because they look better on paper, not sure why.

PHC: Yeah, I really should draw other stuff, hm. I've been trying to get away from drawing just anime stuff for a bit, that's why I added the other non-anime stuff. Hell, even my anime stuff has morphed into a manga-esque style. Thanks for the comments.

Leroy: #1: It's entirely done by me in Painter, the background included. It actually didn't take that long to get the background done, minus the trees (because they didn't look right the first time I did them).
#4: The challenger did indeed draw something, and like his other stuff, it was damn good. Neither of us won, it was just mainly an exercise in drawing in a short amount of time.
#5: The hair is 2 colours. The eyes look kind of dead because I didn't use pen to do the outlines, I just worked from the pencil sketch in this case.
#12: I was actually going to colour the background black too, but didn't in fear of wrecking the picture. I might actually do that now, seeing as though it'd probably make it look better.

Once again guys, thanks for taking the time to look at my stuff. Happy

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Uncommon · Posted: Thu Nov 17, 2005 8:09 am Post subject:

SilentAngel · Posted: Thu Nov 17, 2005 1:12 pm Post subject:

OK, Uncommon, when I refer to anime and manga as two different styles, it's because I see that there are subtle differences between the two. That being said, when I refer to "anime-style" I'm referring to the more simplistic, often cel-shaded quickly-done-for-animation-sake type thing. Not the fact that the pictures are moving or not moving. After all, the anime itself is just a series of still pictures put together.

An example of this (the first thing that came to mind..as it's an influence of my work plus it illustrates what I'm talking about) would be comparing the Sailormoon anime and manga. The characters look vastly different in comparison between the two: the anime (which is cel-shaded and pretty simplistic) and manga (a softer sketchy form). You might not be able to tell the difference, however, I do, and this is what I'm using as the basis of anime-to-manga comparison.

You might interpret them as mediums, and yeah they are, but when I use the terms anime-style and manga-style it's referring to something else which I see in my mind, that there are subtle differences between the two. No need to be overly nitpicky about the terms I use.
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LeRoy_Leo · Posted: Thu Nov 17, 2005 10:35 pm Post subject:

All of this confusion is confusing.
Let's just say she has some work to do in creating some more variety in her style.

Might I request that you draw a male character that looks masculin for us?
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Sparoku · Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2005 5:14 am Post subject:

SilentAngel · Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2005 2:18 pm Post subject:

I could, but then again, I'd probably be lumped with the "it looks the same" and "manga is not a style" crits again. I don't have all that much time to draw, especially now, and when I do draw, it's for enjoyment.
Technically I should be studying right now, but oh well.
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LongeBane · Joined: 03 Feb 2003 Posts: 312 Location: Tomorrow

what happened to those pics?