Saturday, 21 April 2012

Week Three: The Value of Tutorials

Another week, another week of improvement.  Let's get right down to it.

The first four images are again from Draw 50 Animals.  All four have varying degrees of success.  All three images with legs, I'm not happy with the legs.  They are thin and, well, look wrong, lacking the muscular power a big cat should have.  The two lions are the best of the bunch.  I'm now done with that book; it's helpful, but I don't think I can learn what I really want to learn from it.

Here's Simba from the cover of the TLK: OST CD (wow, that's a lot of capitals!).  It turned out wonderful!  The size, the proportions, the overall shape, it all looks good.  The mane was ridiculously tough to draw, but it didn't look too bad at the end.  I originally intended to shade in the rock he stands on, but after 2+ hours of shading Simba himself, I didn't have it in me.  As I get better, hopefully I can cut that time in half.

I didn't know what to draw, and I had limited time, so I just sketched my scissors.  I misjudged my proportions (surprise) and it got cut off by the page, but I was happy with it.



Looking around online, I found this tutorial by FinalProdigy, a skilled pencil artist.  I followed his steps and produced a fairly mean eye.  I didn't have different grades of pencil, so my shading shows less degree in tonal value, but I still couldn't be more thrilled.  At the time I thought it amazing.  Now, I can see that the overall shape is slightly weird (the SW corner juts in), but that can easily be fixed next time.

Die-hard videogame fans will recognize the middle image of Bahamut from FFX.  Again, I followed FinalProdigy's tutorial here.  Our two images are remarkable similar, given the skill gap between us.  His shading is superior, but it's clearly the same image; I'm not sure if this is testament to my improving skill or the quality of his tutorial.  My only sour spot is the chin area: I must have erased it 15 times and still didn't end up happy with it.  Regardless, a success.

Lastly we have my first attempt at a face, from the children's book (ha!) Amazing Faces.  As a kid, I always tried to draw people and failed.  Now, 20 years later, I still failed.  The scan mercifully hides most of it.  It's supposed to be a young girl, for the record.  I've made some wonderful strides these past weeks, but this was a stark reminder of how far I still need to go.


A huge thank you to FinalProdigy and everyone else out there who post art tutorials online, free for any patzer like me to come and use.  It's helped enormously.  If I ever become good enough where I can return the favour, I will.

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