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drworm
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 Posted: Sun Nov 05, 2006 8:03 am Post subject: Private Dancer |
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Unfinished vector of King Cheetah's Dancer Red Monika.
This has been vectored in Inkscape instead of Illustrator - just to see if I could.
I would really appreciate any constructive criticisms.
It is unfinished - the face area is pretty much complete with the exception of the headband.
I'm thinking the style for the glow of her eyes and lips might be out of place.
Inkscape doesn't have any form of 'g-mesh' or 'blend' so I'm limited to creating effects with only gradients. Which is good because it means I don't waste time with nitty-gritty detail  |
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Egypt Urnash
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| Posted: Sun Nov 05, 2006 1:00 pm Post subject: |
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I've been thinking of playing with Inkscape now and then but haven't yet. No blends is a bit of a showstopper - though you can get a lot of transitiona effects done with overlaid transparencies, if it offers them, as well as blurs.
You might want to consider hinting at a little anatomy that's not in the drawing - give her a bit of cheekbone or something; pretty girls tend to be low-detail in the face but that doesn't mean they should be rendered as spheroids with eyes when you're going for this much detail. Similarly, you've highlighted the tip of her nose with the right-side highlight: what's the shapes this little L-shaped line is implying, how would they be lit?
Those are some big damn hooters, but I've been guilty of that one myself. *grin*
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Egypt Urnash
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| Posted: Sun Nov 05, 2006 1:08 pm Post subject: |
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Apparently Inkscape does have blends, it just calls them the much more programmerly term of 'interpolations'. I wonder if it's worth filing a bug on that, since I think every other vector package on the planet calls them 'blends'.
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drworm
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| Posted: Sun Nov 05, 2006 10:04 pm Post subject: |
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| Egypt Urnash wrote: | | You might want to consider hinting at a little anatomy... you've highlighted the tip of her nose with the right-side highlight: what's the shapes this little L-shaped line is implying, how would they be lit? |
I think your eye for detail, or anatomy, is more advanced than mine and I'm not sure how much detail I would be capable of adding convincingly I forgot that I needed to add some eye-lids. But I'm not quite sure what you are suggesting with the nose.
Are you suggesting that instead of having a solid line for the nose I should rely on lighting to give it shape? Having no outlines and just lighting and shadows was an idea I originally had for this picture. But I started it in Illustrator and messed with lighting in a fasion somewhat similar to my Witchblade picture, but that picture was pretty much a tracing and applying a similar style myself wasn't working well.
| Egypt Urnash wrote: | | Those are some big damn hooters, but I've been guilty of that one myself. *grin* |
King-Cheetah should probably get the credit for those And whilst I've never seen the comic, I think Red Monika has always been quite buxom in typical comicbook fasion.
| Egypt Urnash wrote: | | Apparently Inkscape does have blends, it just calls them the much more programmerly term of 'interpolations'. I wonder if it's worth filing a bug on that, since I think every other vector package on the planet calls them 'blends'. |
Thanks for pointing that out. Documentation for Inkscape is limited. The official documentation still says that there is no method for creating a clip. Pretty much everything in Inkscape uses a different name to Illustrator - which can make it a challenge to pickup at first.
| Egypt Urnash wrote: | | I've been thinking of playing with Inkscape now and then but haven't yet. No blends is a bit of a showstopper - though you can get a lot of transitiona effects done with overlaid transparencies, if it offers them, as well as blurs. |
I highly recommend you give it a try. You will find a number of things which will make you say, "why doesn't Illustrator do it like that?". But you might need to keep your drawings a little more simple. And you need to get used to flying blind, because the layers management is quite primitive. Layers don't have previews and it doesn't treat each path a seperate layer in the layers palette. But, unlike Illustrator, it does have transpareny for gradients, but it doesn't have blend-modes (i.e. Multiply)
Wow, that was a long post... |
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Egypt Urnash
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| Posted: Mon Nov 06, 2006 12:53 am Post subject: |
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| drworm wrote: | | I think your eye for detail, or anatomy, is more advanced than mine and I'm not sure how much detail I would be capable of adding convincingly :) |
Quite possibly, what with me being a bitter old thing! *grin*
| Quote: | | Are you suggesting that instead of having a solid line for the nose I should rely on lighting to give it shape? Having no outlines and just lighting and shadows was an idea I originally had for this picture. |
Nah - I'm suggesting keeping the outlines, but doing some definition of shapes with the lighting. Even a stylized nose like this will have complexity to it: there's the bridge of the nose, the tip, and the 'wings' on the side, and this needs to be given consideration when you're lighting this realistically. There might be a bit of shadow cast on her face beyond it. Look at the King Of All Cosmos in Katamari Damanci, for instance: nobody's nose actually looks like his, but the stretched tetrahedron in the middle of his face really works as a stylized, cartoony nose because it's got the same basic shape as an actual nose.
This would be much easier to explain if I wasn't too lazy to scribble something out and attach the image. *grin*
| Quote: | | the layers management is quite primitive. Layers don't have previews and it doesn't treat each path a seperate layer in the layers palette. But, unlike Illustrator, it does have transpareny for gradients, but it doesn't have blend-modes (i.e. Multiply) |
I usually reach a point where I end up turning off the layer previews anyway, as they start really bogging down complex drawings for me. If AI respected this setting in the Illustrator Startup documents, I'd probably have it off all the time!
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drworm
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| Posted: Mon Nov 06, 2006 3:07 am Post subject: |
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| Egypt Urnash wrote: | | Nah - I'm suggesting keeping the outlines, but doing some definition of shapes with the lighting. |
I get you now. With the current lighting the nose looks flat, 2D.
Here's an update. The nose still doesn't capture the difinition - still needs tweaking.
I haven't quite decided if I'm going to stroke the body yet. I think I will because it might look out of place. |
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Husker
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| Posted: Mon Nov 06, 2006 4:45 am Post subject: |
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Wow looking very good. I like the changes you made. I vote on stroking the body.I think it will define the shape of the body and arms even more.
I'm always envious of artists like you that can draw characters like this. My talents are lacking in this area but it's what I most want to learn. |
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drworm
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| Posted: Mon Nov 06, 2006 5:02 am Post subject: |
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| Husker wrote: | | I'm always envious of artists like you that can draw characters like this. My talents are lacking in this area but it's what I most want to learn. |
Oh, I can't draw characters like this At least I don't think so. I haven't picked up a pencil in 10 years.
In the first post I credit the original artist and the pencil drawing I've used - with permission. |
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Husker
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| Posted: Mon Nov 06, 2006 1:34 pm Post subject: |
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Well I guess imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.  |
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Egypt Urnash
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| Posted: Mon Nov 06, 2006 3:32 pm Post subject: |
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Husker, I can think of no better place to learn how to draw cartoons than John K. walking you through the Preston Blair books. He comes off as being dogmatic about what cartooning styles are acceptable, but it's really more about which stylizations get in the way of learning.
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Husker
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| Posted: Mon Nov 06, 2006 4:07 pm Post subject: |
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| Egypt Urnash wrote: | | Husker, I can think of no better place to learn how to draw cartoons than John K. walking you through the Preston Blair books. He comes off as being dogmatic about what cartooning styles are acceptable, but it's really more about which stylizations get in the way of learning. |
Thanks Egypt. I'll definitely check it out. One of my best friends is an artist who can doodle amazing characters in seconds and it makes me feel so inadequate. I know I can do it, I just need to sit down and practice more. |
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drworm
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| Posted: Tue Nov 07, 2006 9:34 am Post subject: |
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Because I quite enjoy being able to look back on how the drawing has progressed in this thread...
This is how it looked at the end of last night. I've improved on it more this evening, but not enough to warrant a snap-shot.
If anyone is offended by certain elements of the female form, just say so. No need to start a debate, I'll censor it.
Comments and suggestions still welcome. |
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Husker
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| Posted: Tue Nov 07, 2006 2:27 pm Post subject: |
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| This is looking fantastic! The highlights, shadows and outlines reallly make it stand out. |
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drworm
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| Posted: Thu Nov 09, 2006 10:05 pm Post subject: |
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Ok, fourth snap-shot:
Some of the changes are a little subtle in this one. I thickened the lighting effect at the bottom of her hair; darkened her skin a shade to help bring out the yellow lighting; made the skull look a little less flat.
The major addition is the detail on the gold. I'm interested to hear any opinions about the method I've chosen or a critique of how it has been applied. I'm not sure if it's too much of a departure from the original colouring method. |
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drworm
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