[emcee2]

I started drawing this at the shop today, got really into it, and couldent stop. to bad its on shitty computer paper and off centered, oh well. Im really into practicing on drawing skulls, shading/lighting and color theory right now so this is all of that rolled into one, ive never really studied it before so this stuff is all made up, i figure im gonna get some different colored flood lights and make some models out of plastercine to practice some more. let me know what you guys think and if you have any suggestions? im also looking for suggestions on a background? and if anyone knows of any websites/reading material/videos on lighting and color theory, hook a brother up!

[Moon]

this is nice!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

the only crit i could give is consistency in the lighting. you have a red lighting in the left side of the face but i cant see it anywhere in the legs

[CHRIS-IN-CALI]

Cool man......I think that a pair of legs coming out of the back of the skull would give it a more symetrical look

[purplethumb]

Idea is cool and the legs look good, The biggest thing I see is that the perspective of the skull is skewed. the top of the skull seems to be at an almost 3/4 view while the view of the face itself seems to be almost straight on. The eyes are close but the nose and mouth seem almost flat.

[J.D.]

Coool.

[emcee2]

thanks guys, hey moon i was thinking you might see some red lighting on the front legs but i asked my boss at the shop and he said no, better to go with my gut next time. I actually got the dimensions of this skull by taking a picture of a toddler and tracing over it maybe thats why the forehead is so big and it looks like a 3/4 view, do you think there is anyway to correct it? and i see what you mean about the nose a mouth being flat, how would i go about fixing that?

[The Nerd]

i think ur missing 2 legs ... ???? anyways idea is great the contrast and shading is good and the colors are excelente .... haha .. i dunno just looks a bit wierd to me like maybe the legs are too small ... i dunno ..

[natebot]

This is cool. Very nice use of reflected light. The only thing I see that bothers me a little bit would be the jawbone on the left side of the face (our left). It seems like it comes out a little too far from where it connects to the cheek bone.

Looks good.

[Bad Boy]

dude thats bad ass! what are you using to color and shade?

This post has been edited by Bad Boy: 07 November 2009 - 04:38 PM

[The Misfit]

mandible looks a bit small, other than that good piece

[purplethumb]

emcee2, on Nov 7 2009, 06:18 AM, said:

do you think there is anyway to correct it? and i see what you mean about the nose a mouth being flat, how would i go about fixing that?

A little PS work would get him lookin right




Not much of a change but enough to cut that 3/4 view look out of it I think

This post has been edited by purplethumb: 08 November 2009 - 11:37 PM

[emcee2]

cool, what did you end up doing to it, i can tell you cut the top of the head off a bit but what else did you do?

[purplethumb]

Didnt cut anything out per say just isolated the head itself in photoshop then tweaked it with the warp, perspective, and liquify tools until the overall shape felt right.

I use PS in this way quite a bit in between the sketching and lining stage of a piece. if something doesnt feel right it gives you the ability to quickly try something to fix it with out having to redraw the whole thing just to see how itll look and if you dont like it just hit undo and try something else.


Ill get my sketch how I want it then print it out at about 15% opacity centered on the page and line it with my pens from there.

Saves me a lot of time and effort.

[emcee2]

humm sounds like a plan stan, ill have to give that a go, i guess you dont have a light table eh?

[purplethumb]

emcee2, on Nov 9 2009, 08:03 AM, said:

humm sounds like a plan stan, ill have to give that a go, i guess you dont have a light table eh?

I do have a light table and use it when doing most stencil type work or simpler adjustments, but if a drawing needs something but I not sure what I wanna do with it PS just lets me try more faster. Some view it as "cheating" but personally I consider it a tool just like my prismacolors or tracing paper, and I fully believe that if someone doesnt have the skills to draw in the first place no amount of PS work will "do it for them". You of course are not in that category of people, which make me believe that PS could be a valuable tool for you. Be prepared though (if you dont already know the program) there is a learning curve involved, I had to buy PS4 for dummies to learn how to use it effectively.

[emcee2]

maybe if i knew how to use photoshop better, one of the things that annoys me about photoshop is trying to cut something out precisely when the image is magnified and then the image runs off the viewing window and theres no way to pause the lasso tool until you can move the rest of the image into the viewable window? anyways i dont see photoshop or any other tools as cheating, many of the great artists "cheated" using devices such as the draftmans net, which was basically a frame to look through with grid lines, or camera obscura which was basically worked like an old time camera that projected the image onto a piece of paper. great well known artist like canaletto and vermeer were known to use these.

[purplethumb]

You know I had the same problem when selecting specific areas with the laso tool, after reading through the for dummies book I dont use the laso anymore. What I do now is use the pen tool to create a path all the way around the object , (it does take some practice with the pen tool to get how it works down) you can do anything you want between points along the path i.e. zoom in or out, pan left or right or use any other tool you like. once I have the path completed I bring up the paths window, right click the path Im using and select "make selection" from the pop up menu. That turns the area inside the path into a selection and you can then edit it as if you had used the laso to select it.

Working with paths in this way will save you a lot of aggravation once you get the hang of it but you may need a book like "for dummies" to explain all the pen functions, how to edit and manipulate your path, and the shortcut keys that work with the tool itself. It is a VERY precise tool when understood and used correctly. I can use it well to a degree but still havent learned all it can do.

I think I paid like 40$ for the "dummies" book and it would been worth 10 times as much, PS is capable of so much its easy to get lost in there without somethin to explain what everything does and how to use all the features.

I also use a graphics tablet with my laptop which makes a lot of the features of PS much easier to use. The touch pad mouse on a laptop is utterly useless in Photoshop ...lol

[emcee2]

humm ok, i have used the pen tool before i just thought the lasso would be more precise to get right on the edge. I just started watching dean deakynes introduction to color last night and he actually shows you how to do allot of the stuff you just talked about, he says he uses the warp tool on practically all his drawings to make them seem less static. so ill go through that today and try some of his stuff, he also uses illustrator to make a path on his banners so that the text will bend with the banners, seems like a very helpful dvd so far and im only an hour in and theres 4 more hours left. I have a graphic pad but i ran over the pen with my computer chair pretty much ass soon as i got it, but if you say its the bees ill have to order another pen.

[purplethumb]

I have illustrator too but have never used it, can you use it to warp text that has been hand drawn to a banner? I know how to use PS to warp inputed text but havent found a good way to warp custom drawn text easily so I always just did it with tracing paper. It would save me a lot of time if illustrator could do that. Does that DVD go over more than just the basic tattoo stuff? It looks interesting just hard to part with any cash at the moment, the wife and I are having our first child in 12 days so money is a little tight.

The graphics pad I have is a pretty old one just a cheapie of ebay, it doesnt register pressure sensitivity in PS4 cause the driver is so old which makes actually drawing on the PC a little lacking but all the other functions work great. It really heps with precision. Ive never used an actual mouse with PS (just have a laptop) so I cant compare it to that but the pen is 1000 times better than this damn touchpad thats for sure.

If I had to money Id get a wacom tablet, those thing frigin rock, you can even erase with the top of the pen.