Cats and dogs study
© 2024 KoreleyI followed up on the critiques of yesterday's cats, and changed how i go about both the line of action, and the shape design. I feel like they look better, but i don't know if the dynamicity can be pushed further. Don't be shy about critique, i'm desperate to hear about the flaws in my art!
Aunt Herbert
My thought #1 doesn't have to do with your drawing skill primarily, it's just "Boohoo, why such a dark background?" You are not doing anything with shading, so you clearly want a critique of your line arts, and lines are just better to see with more contrast. You are working with a digital medium, so it can't be so hard to find the button to just turn the background white.
Pushing the dynamicity... I don't know what that is exactly meant to be, I know someone who is obsessed with it, but I am not sure he knows what he is talking about either.
You want to work from a foundation, and it is a valid decision, but I would still prefer if you found some way to distinguish foundation from final rendering. As you are working digital, there should be a gold branded solution to that, namely, draw the foundation on lair 1, switch to lair 2 for drawing the rendering, deselect lair 1. Depending on your software it may be called lairs or masks, or it may have even another name.
In analog drawing the trick is usually to just draw the foundation in very light lines, and the final rendering in very heavy, visible lines, or even to draw the foundation in a different color, which also works well in digital, if you want to present both foundation and rendering in one image, but still separate them visually.
Reason: your foundation will naturally look geometrical, abstract and controlled. If your foundation and your final result can't be visually distinguished, that quality will break apart any fluidity or dynamic of lines that you want to show in your final result.
There must be a dozen ways to visually separate your foundation from your rendering, please chose one and use it.
Koreley
Please note that the following is meant as a chill response, i'm dissecting your answer solely for the sake of responding to multiple of your concerns at once
Q: My thought #1 doesn't have to do with your drawing skill primarily, it's just "Boohoo, why such a dark background?" You are not doing anything with shading, so you clearly want a critique of your line arts, and lines are just better to see with more contrast. You are working with a digital medium, so it can't be so hard to find the button to just turn the background white.
A: I tend to like having my backgrounds be dark to avoid eye strain aswell. In general i don't like drawing on white anymore. i find it too hard to look at. I could however also take an extra step to color in the background white if you think that'd help with better readability. I can see how that'd be useful!
Q:Pushing the dynamicity... I don't know what that is exactly meant to be, I know someone who is obsessed with it, but I am not sure he knows what he is talking about either.
A: i just mean "make my poses look as dynamic as possible". I've often heard that it makes your poses look better, and after personal testing i've noticed that it does improve the overall picture.
Q: You want to work from a foundation, and it is a valid decision, but I would still prefer if you found some way to distinguish foundation from final rendering. As you are working digital, there should be a gold branded solution to that, namely, draw the foundation on lair 1, switch to lair 2 for drawing the rendering, deselect lair 1. Depending on your software it may be called lairs or masks, or it may have even another name.
A: the simple issue with that is that, 1, it creates too many layers for my liking. 2, it takes too much time to do properly on a time limit. Layers can also be renamed and arranged in folders, but to be organized, you need to dedicate it the proper time. So i usually just tend to not waste needless time on that and instead treat my digital layers as if they were traditional paper sheets.
Q: There must be a dozen ways to visually separate your foundation from your rendering, please chose one and use it.
A: I'll see about that! Thank you for the suggestions
Aunt Herbert
Taking it all very chill. I know I get carried away and occassionally leave unnecessary long walls of text, that are hard to respond too.
Your description of lairs frankly sounds like you looked at the functions and got a bit scared by them, which, depending on the software you use might be a quite natural response. But if you take your time once to prepare a template with a second lair, and know where the buttons are to switch lairs, and to hide one of the lairs, those are really just a few extra clicks while drawing. You don't have to study all the possible options that organizing lairs could theoretically give you to get there.
The dark background to avoid straining the eyes to me has the opposite effect, when I try to discern details. Maybe it comes from my olden eyes acting up.
The main reason why I harped on so much about distinction between foundation and rendering is, the perspectivic foundation gives a very static and controlled impression, which is a feature, not a bug. If you leave it as strong and dominating as it is, it's almost impossible to decide whether your rendering looks dynamic.
Kennycobweb
these are all great! my only critique would be that the top drawing of the dog feels stiff in its posing. i don't have a reference of the actual image, so you may have just been following how it looked there, but i think a more dramatic line of action would lead to the pose feeling more alive. the dog looks like it's supposed to be in action, but something about it makes it look sedentary.
Koreley
It could be the straight line for the spinal cord along with the presence of the skeletal structure. As someone else said here, we're not copysters, at the end of the day what matters is the final look.
I'm wondering however if i want to push static poses into dynamicism, i feel like even though the dog looks fairly static, it adds to the design of it, but it might just be a me thing.
Eitherway, i do want to train my dynamicisms, so i'll be trying to push all the poses i see before deciding which ones i want to keep static. Thank you a lot for your input ^^
Hello again, Koreley. Nicest works and shows of your cats and dogs sketches. I love how much dynamics, theatricality, and acting you've come through, even the crouching Boston Terrier above. I admire how much this creature design not only looks like a terrier, but has the humor and the feeling of a terrier, therefore, the canine's ribcage and pelvis forces and forms don't seem too liveliest and most vitalest yet. Would you like to kindly go ahead with 16 minutes of 2 minute felines and canines?
The logic behind this is because, by working with a Pencil underneath your hands, then you can and will be the least concerned with details, but mostly in the action and motion of the poses to the spirit. So, for even most details, please check out this video below.
?feature=shared
Thanks for listening. Have fun.
thank you so much for your input! I'm not sure what you mean exactly by "working with a pencil underneath your hands". Are you telling me to switch to traditional, or does that mean something different?
Also, i've got a question about asymmetry. Does the concept apply only to anatomical parts of the same muscle group (aka, the arm, the leg) separately from the rest, or does every relationship in the body (comparing your arms to your legs, your chest to your head, your pelvis to your hands, ecc) work in unison? or is that a bit of both?
Also, i've completed my daily 30 minutes of drawing, and i made it into 30 mins of 2 minutes figure drawings like you suggested, i'll post my results shortly!
thank you again for your input! ^^