A journey of self discovery (Latest Artwork and progress)

[DrHAX]

After having my heart torn out by cheating ex-fiancee the world became clearer to me. Old passions ignited and rusty gears turned as creative steam set forth a train of thought. I bought a cintiq Companion that came from Dreamworks animation and after raiding Wi-Fi from a taco bell I got the ball rolling.


This is going to be where I post progress in my artwork. not entirely sure where this lead, but im committed. Whether it ends up with me being committed or not is something to be seen.


Here is the first piece I made with my Cintiq Companion... how fitting it came from Dreamworks considering digital art is a dream of mine in the works. (I do wonder what this thing made there.)

Here's the practice piece. This looked nothing like when it did at Taco Bell.

Here's it coloured.

the last time I truly did digital art was five years ago. I was drawing nightly. I met my fiancee who was an artist and I think her doing it burnt me out. Or her harsh words made me give up.

its hard to believe I used to bring an intuos 2 to school everyday and a linux netbook with mypaint on it. I just wanted to create. Now here I am with a big purchase, and waiting on a bunch books and tools to arrive. Im getting into programming and art.. you can see where I want to go with this.



Yes.. Im a furry so expect a bit of anthro art and characters. I apologize if that bothers you.

any feedback or suggestions are welcomed. Any BOO you sucks will not be (not that I can see this community doing such a thing.)

Any tips and tricks from other artists will be cherished!
[doublepost=1500789031,1500783192][/doublepost]Talked to a friend. Had an inspiration itch. Knocked this out pretty quickly. I am not very good at art, but every little bit of practice helps. Especially with unfamiliar tools when my Krita book comes in things should get better.

I need practice with lighting especially. Highlights are still foreign to me.

 

[Caine]

Oh wow. You are pretty skilled. You should not give up on this.

 

[DrHAX]

Thank you! I have a lot to learn, but at least I know where to approach it from. My end goal is being decent enough to make frames for animations or sprite sheets. I have experience in that from my days doing pixel art. My family is really supportive of me on venture. Art has always been in my blood. I made a few of the backgrounds for my ex's pieces. I normally write but this something I always wanted to do.

I have some of those body kun and chan figures coming in the mail, both the regular and the figma versions. Those should help me with anatomy since trying to find the right references are difficult.

 

[DrHAX]

Here's apreview of what im working on. I just discovered grouping layers in krita. Which is a god sent. I do every colour on a separate layer so that way editing is easier (Now I can group Characters, backgrounds, etc.). However it can get chaotic quickly. I use a neon pink background to help distinguish where the colours are since i work with transparencies. Krita is turning out to be the best choice Ive made. It has brush stabilization which really helps.

Here's a screenshot.

 

[Silent-Hunter]

Hey you're doing pretty good, I like it!

 

[PowerGod]

You have skills, do you also make animations ?

 

[comradekingu]

Ingress read like a strange commercial.

Shadows were better fitting on the first. See if you can make a fur looking brush to apply.

 

[DrHAX]

Our friendly character with his "toothpick"

Background so far. Decided to go less by looks and more of feel when drawing it. Need to shadows, hightlighs, effects and debating on a streetlamp.

Yeah the practice colour piece shadows got wonky. I tried to treat Krita like mypaint or gimp.. It isnt like either programs. Im sure somebody must have a fur brush for Krita.

@PowerGod Animation is the end goal. Krita can actually do it! Which is what made me search for a cintiq. My goal is to see if I can make enough art assets to make a 2d game. Now Im practicing. Doing research and plenty of studying.


I just got a bunch of brush packs. I'll monkey around with them tomorrow. I can't wait for my things to arrive.

I talked to an old friend of mine and told him about my Ideas. I used to draw fan art for his music which he uploaded to YouTube. He said once I start making a game he'll gladly make the music!
[doublepost=1500885490,1500865087][/doublepost]Version without spoiler tag.

And a version im putting up with a spoiler tag. I think you can guess why.

Spoiler

Tried out the new brushes i got. I am quite pleased with how the effects came out.

 

[PCXT]

Wow, these look really good. I also think that animations are good approach, maybe focusing on incorporating some vectors which may make doing animation a bit less laborious. About the last... I hope they're not from these memories of XIX century .

(I can't draw anything except schematics, diagrams and crude technical drawings, and because I'm inalterable, while drawing anything other digital way, I use probabilistic approach - drawing as much lines as I can and then removing everything which looks worse than better ones, repeating if needed).

//slowly taking list of typical tech forum users' stereotypes out from drawer and placing tick near the line "furry artist" .

 

[DrHAX]

Couldn't do much today with my art. Today was spent mostly helping around the farm and making room for the two VW buses we got.

My two programming books did arrive however, and I began messing around with that. I can see myself liking programming.

For the art side I spent about fifteen minutes setting up brushes after having an anxiety attack after being reminded of my ex. I shook that off and got a whole set of brushes labeled furry in there. I am quite pleased to find lace brushes and one of the packs gave me a brush to make chains. Fur and hair brushes were thrown in as well as a few effects brushes.

Hoping my Krita book arrives soon. I need to learn more about this program.

 

[blimpsgo180]

Your art is really good!

If I have advice, it is you might want to specialize. There's a lot that goes into making video games, from art to programming, music to production, debugging, quality assurance, and more. It's not easy to be like the Cave Story guy and make a game by yourself. Maybe just focus on art and look for other people to work with. You are a talented artist!

Also, I used to have panic attacks, have sought professional help and have since stopped. I'd be happy to share my technique in a private message. No medications are involved.

 

[DrHAX]

I cancelled th first order of the Krita book and paid a bit more to get it here by Thursday at the least.

That should drastically help me. I'm still trying to wrap my head around highlights and shadows.. I kind of get shadows, but highlights still perplex me.

 

[DrHAX]

Decided to mess around with the new brushes I got.


Did not really reference anything and I wasn't focusing on trying to make things look 100% this was to just see how the new brushes handle. So its kind of sloppy.
[doublepost=1501064921,1501039556][/doublepost]Oh gods I just realized I forgot the layer for the earring in the render... argh! There's just a floating highlight...

 

[PowerGod]

So, you use spoilers for blood and not for this ?

Seems like that I can't stand naked furry things, so good luck with your work, I'll run away

 

[levi]

Naked? I don't see anything naked here (topless maybe, but I assume that's male). I also don't have a particular appreciation of anthropomorphised animals, seeing it as something I threw away with my childhood cartoons, but I can still appreciate the skill involved in these paintings.

 

[DrHAX]

Honestly the piece isn't one of my best or one I like. It's literally just a scrap even the line art I didn't put much thought into the colour choices are a bit off it was just to test out the brushes. I'll draw something better tonight... I hope.

 

[PCXT]

My two programming books did arrive however, and I began messing around with that. I can see myself liking programming.

Good luck with programming! Sometimes I make programs just for joy of observing their effects. So if you don't have much to program and you like creativity, you can make programs which try to make art!
Recently, I made an automata which generates 2D maps of landscapes. About 1,5 hour of C++ programming if evolutionary rules on 2D are known and models linking these rules (this is important for making roads/rivers, we don't want road inside building, we need basic urban planning/history) are figured out.
And now I'm thinking about 3D from it.

 

[DrHAX]

I swear they have somebody at Microsoft who programs the os to always update when ever you want to use the computer. I really wanted to draw but instead it's been installing an update for the last hour.

My Bluetooth keyboard came in though...


I hate updates..
[doublepost=1501125563,1501115192][/doublepost]Speaking of updates and caring about things.. Here's the recent sketch.


My art books should be coming in tomorrow so I might hold off on colouring until I study them. It felt good drawing a sketch I am pleased about. Really looking forward to when my body kun and chan Dx come in the mail, as well as the figma figures...those should make for wondrous references! I see how I am improving step by step. I feel my approach to this is correct.

 

[Caine]

I hate updates..

I hate your new bluetooth keyboard. Having to use that keyboard is a thing of nightmares for me.

That said, I like your art. Please keep sharing. It seems like you have found some positive energy in this.
Almost like a long dead flame being awakened again. I hope that is true.

 

[DrHAX]

@Caine You're statement is pretty accurate. I went into writing because I couldn't draw what I saw.., learned quickly that many writers, editors and etc hate details...( got into Internet fist fights over it.)

So I partially lost that. Haven't given up on my stories. I just might need to transfer the medium.

This whole thing is a leap of faith and I'm seeing just how far I can take it. I removed my ex's art from the walls and I noticed there was something missing to it. It felt empty. Not me feeling it but it looking like something wasn't there.

Also the keyboard isn't as horrific as it looks. I don't need a full sized keyboard for this adventure and having it be close to the buttons on the side of the cintiq increase work flow. It's solid for a Chinese lump of plastic. The keys do have a nice mechanical feel to them, also it's portable and frees up a USB slot.

Edit: Checked some tracking numbers. All three art books should be coming in the mail today as well as my Body Kun and Chan DX set. I am so excited. Todays going to be a good day

 

[DrHAX]

Got my figurines. These will be helpful.





Only gripe is they included only one gun holding hand. Right... as a person with left handed characters this irritates me.


My books came in today. Whilst I was worried about buying a book on inking and composition and light and colours for tradition painting... I was incorrect to ever be. The inking book was aimed directly for story telling as it advertised. However in the prologue had an snippet from somebody at... yupe dreamworks animation...I Love how everything is linking together here folks! The book itself talks about how to tell a story from visuals. It talks about visual grammar.. The other book talks about light and colour. Literally but it goes into such depth of WHY and HOW comparing classical works, adn the artists own works. This isn't some typical artist.. this guy is a fantasy artist so seeing his work is eye brow raising. It touches on everything I was confused about or noticed but never knew what it was called.


they both sent chills down my spine because they both touch on something I was struggling with. The framed ink book gave me goosebumps because it talks about giving the art purpose.. which sounds posh as hell, but coming from a writing background I understand what the author means. the guy does black and white scratchy inkings that look messy and a bit unattractive, but they have so much to them it's remarkable. And he explains how it works. This book is aimed towards graphic novels or animation.


The second book color and light talks about the importance of colour and lighting... (No crap its the bloody title) But it gives examples of how everything affects everything and the relationships of colours and etc.


Basically these two books are better then my damn art classes in school. they answer questions I never knew exactly how to ask. And I bought these two damn books on a whim because they were cheap and I had a trial of amazon prime. the Krita book cost more then them combined but holy crap are they invaluable tools.

(Copied over from the what are you buying thread to help keep the information uniform here)

Here's a quick update of all I've been able to do today... (been one of those nights where every time I get to sit down I am called away before I can even collect my thoughts..)