[Showcase] Nolafus' Artsy Fartsy Stuff

Hello there and welcome to my art thread!

This is really the first time I'm sharing any of my drawings besides one in another thread. As most people are, I'm a bit nervous about doing this because I'm more of a writer myself and haven't worked much on drawing. However, I feel that I at least have a bit of potential, so I decided to post some artwork here to see what kind of feedback I get.

I might as well apologize now. I draw with only pencils and I don't have a tablet or scanner, so these are simply pictures from my camera. Not the best way to upload your creations online, but it's better than nothing.

This is simply my signature without the text on it. It's supposed to be two eyes. The one on the left belonging to a reptilian creature and is supposed to look a bit tired, while the one on the right is a human eye.


This is supposed to be an otter, because otters are awesome. I tried to make it look like it was covered in fur and somewhat cute.


Since this is a pokemon forum, here's a pokeball. I was working on my shading with this drawing specifically.


Here's a quick doodle of my favorite pokemon Serperior. I always imagined that snakes were trickier on the battlefield than normal pokemon because they can twist their bodies in so many different ways, so that's the inspiration behind this drawing.


That's all I have for now. I know I'm not the best, but I hope that these are at least somewhat decent. I haven't really worked on drawing at all, so I know I can improve. I'm a writer after all, but maybe I can be both! Let me know what you think!

Ah! You are quite the little artist! So glad you posted a gallery. <3

I was in your boat not too long ago. Before I was promoted, I actually exclusively took pictures of and posted my art too. It's.. a labor of love, at the very least! But it is better than nothing and the quality isn't bad at all, so don't apologize.

Your signature art is a favorite of mine, I'll admit. Not only is it drawn well, but it lends to your story well too. I like the fact that it's humanizing the alien characters, by literally illustrating the old adage "the eyes are the window to the soul". You've made a very potent statement by doing this, and it's definitely earned my liking. :)

My second favorite has to be the otter. I'm a sucker for cute little animals and otters are no exception! Your attempts at drawing fur worked out very well, in my opinion. It's the consistent texture you used in the shading that really makes it believable. I'll admit though, I would have liked to see the body!

Every artist has room to improve, so don't worry. You're on the right track and you should be proud of what you've produced so far, because it's not bad by any stretch of the imagination. Just keep working on your line work and your shading and all the other rules of traditional art.. and before you know it you'll have given a life to your art that was never there before. Good work so far Slayr, can't wait to see more! :)

A steady hand makes all the difference when drawing line art. I learned that the hard way. One thing I could suggest is holding your pencil in place with your drawing hand while using your free-hand to rotate the page you're drawing on when drawing curves or circles. I've found that easier to do than forcing my hand across the paper, and it generally leaves a smoother line (depending on how good you are at keeping your drawing hand from jittering). This would work wonders if you decide to redraw your Poke Ball or Serperior sketches at some point.

Additionally, I'd suggest getting some colored pencils. They even don't have to be professional grade (I actually make due with some old Crayola ones I had left over from school). It helps to give your pictures some color, unless the object/character actually has dark coloration (darker colors may or may not blur with your outlines).

Alexial said:

Ah! You are quite the little artist! So glad you posted a gallery. <3

I was in your boat not too long ago. Before I was promoted, I actually exclusively took pictures of and posted my art too. It's.. a labor of love, at the very least! But it is better than nothing and the quality isn't bad at all, so don't apologize.

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Why thank you! I do plan on working on my drawing skills, so there should be more to come.

I actually take about ten pictures of each drawing and narrow it down to one to post online. Alright, good to know the little extra effort is paying off.

Alexial said:

Your signature art is a favorite of mine, I'll admit. Not only is it drawn well, but it lends to your story well too. I like the fact that it's humanizing the alien characters, by literally illustrating the old adage "the eyes are the window to the soul". You've made a very potent statement by doing this, and it's definitely earned my liking. :)

My second favorite has to be the otter. I'm a sucker for cute little animals and otters are no exception! Your attempts at drawing fur worked out very well, in my opinion. It's the consistent texture you used in the shading that really makes it believable. I'll admit though, I would have liked to see the body!

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I think you just organized them by how much time I spent on them. Which, probably has something to say about art quality and the amount of time you spend on a drawing. I have the hardest time posing various things and getting their entire body to look right, but I suppose I can give another otter a shot. The one I wanted to make the best impression was my signature because it is advertising for my writing, glad to know I did well. If I remember correctly, I spent about three and a half hours on my signature and by the end I thought "I'm never doing this again!" XD

Alexial said:

Every artist has room to improve, so don't worry. You're on the right track and you should be proud of what you've produced so far, because it's not bad by any stretch of the imagination. Just keep working on your line work and your shading and all the other rules of traditional art.. and before you know it you'll have given a life to your art that was never there before. Good work so far Slayr, can't wait to see more! :)

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Aww shucks! :V

Skunter said:

A steady hand makes all the difference when drawing line art. I learned that the hard way. One thing I could suggest is holding your pencil in place with your drawing hand while using your free-hand to rotate the page you're drawing on when drawing curves or circles. I've found that easier to do than forcing my hand across the paper, and it generally leaves a smoother line (depending on how good you are at keeping your drawing hand from jittering). This would work wonders if you decide to redraw your Poke Ball or Serperior sketches at some point.

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Whoa, I never thought of that, I'll have to try it out. Thanks for the tip!

Skunter said:

Additionally, I'd suggest getting some colored pencils. They even don't have to be professional grade (I actually make due with some old Crayola ones I had left over from school). It helps to give your pictures some color, unless the object/character actually has dark coloration (darker colors may or may not blur with your outlines).

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Alright, I'll give colored pencils a try. I'll have to see if I still have some left over from elementary school.

Thanks for commenting!

Skunter said:

Additionally, I'd suggest getting some colored pencils. They even don't have to be professional grade (I actually make due with some old Crayola ones I had left over from school). It helps to give your pictures some color, unless the object/character actually has dark coloration (darker colors may or may not blur with your outlines).

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I'd like to second this.

You definitely don't need the highest quality of anything to produce damn good art. But coloring skills can go a long way to helping you improve as an artist. You need to be mindful of your hands and little things that don't always come into play when working with a pencil (like the pressure you're applying and things of that nature). But yeah, don't feel like you need to run out and get the 132 pack of copic markers and prismacolor pencils. Just work with what you've got! n_n;

Slayr231 said:

I think you just organized them by how much time I spent on them. Which, probably has something to say about art quality and the amount of time you spend on a drawing.

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And just one quick other thing. You don't need to spend a bajillion hours to make art "good" (and I put that in quotes deliberately), for the record. I'm a very big believer in letting art flow. No matter when or where, inspiration isn't immune from anything; and if the moment strikes you just gotta go with it. Those singular moments of total and utter understanding of the artistic universe can be rated the highest degree and rival any other piece. But that's just what I believe. ヘ(￣ω￣ヘ)

Yay! More art!

I found a huge amount of colored pencils in our crafts drawer, so now my drawings are in color!

First up of the two, is the otter picture again. However, I colored it and I think it turned out a lot better.

I used about three different shades of brown to really give the effect that it had fur.

Since penguins are also awesome, here's an Emperor Penguin.

It didn't come out quite as well as I wanted it to, but I think it still came out pretty good. I think it's because the head is turned exactly 90 degrees, so it gives the penguin a 2D look. Plus the graphite from the pencil kind of reflected back the flash from the camera. Oh well, live and learn.

Tell me what you think!

See, you're not that bad at art! Though, like all artist can have room for improvement. The penguin is the better of the newer ones in my opinion. The shading looks the best on it I think. Remember shading is key on making a drawing look 3D and not flat, so definitely keep working on it. This is a good shading good found on dA. Remember to think about where the light source is coming from before shading is a tip my dad told me and so will a lot of people into art will tell you. Good shading tutorial number two. It's good to get many types of pencil, but you don't have to. Like Alexial said, you can produce something amazing with the material you have and lots of practice! Keep it up!

AWsquared said:

See, you're not that bad at art! Though, like all artist can have room for improvement. The penguin is the better of the newer ones in my opinion. The shading looks the best on it I think. Remember shading is key on making a drawing look 3D and not flat, so definitely keep working on it. This is a good shading good found on dA. Remember to think about where the light source is coming from before shading is a tip my dad told me and so will a lot of people into art will tell you. Good shading tutorial number two. It's good to get many types of pencil, but you don't have to. Like Alexial said, you can produce something amazing with the material you have and lots of practice! Keep it up!

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Thanks for the feedback! I'll definitely be checking out those tutorials and trying to improve. I'll be sure to draw some more things, but it'll probably have to wait until Friday. You know, college stuff. Thanks again for the feedback and tutorials!

Hey, you're pretty good, Slayr! I like the realistic look of the otter, and your attention to detail in all of your works stands out.

Nice shading practise on the Pokeball, by the way! It's an important skill to develop, depth adds another dimension to the work and brings out its features more prominently.

If there's one tip I can offer you, it's to always draw with confidence. Seriously, draw as if you've been doing it for years and years and know exactly how everything is going to turn out. Your lines should be smooth and confident, and I promise you, once you get the hang of it, the quality of your work will shoot up. I think this one factor is the only thing that holds people back from achieving true talent, and you are well on your way there!

Keep up the good work!

LoudSilence said:

Hey, you're pretty good, Slayr! I like the realistic look of the otter, and your attention to detail in all of your works stands out.

Nice shading practise on the Pokeball, by the way! It's an important skill to develop, depth adds another dimension to the work and brings out its features more prominently.

If there's one tip I can offer you, it's to always draw with confidence. Seriously, draw as if you've been doing it for years and years and know exactly how everything is going to turn out. Your lines should be smooth and confident, and I promise you, once you get the hang of it, the quality of your work will shoot up. I think this one factor is the only thing that holds people back from achieving true talent, and you are well on your way there!

Keep up the good work!

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Why thank you! :D

I didn't expect to receive actual compliments. You guys are great, I actually want to work on my drawings now. If it's a drawing style I always liked, it's the realistic one. You know, the drawings which you're not quite sure if it's a drawing or a photo. I'll be sure to work towards that and now that I've received some compliments, I'll definitely be drawing with some more confidence. Thanks again!

I have some more drawings! And by "some more" I actually mean just one drawing. All I can say was that it was a busy week.

It took me a while to think about what I actually wanted to draw. I thought about various animals and whatnot, but then my mind drifted to my story. I had previously tried to draw my main character, but it didn't end so well. However, I decided to give it another shot. My main character Nolafus is a reptilian alien, known as a srain in my story. I drew a portrait of his head since I'm still working on drawing actual bodies. Maybe in the future I'll give drawing his entire body a go.

The eyes took me forever to get right, and I'm not a huge fan of my coloring job, but oh well. I don't think it's that bad overall. I just noticed, almost all of my drawings are facing left...

Okay, I managed to finish one more drawing before finals really kicked in.

I finally decided to give drawing bodies a shot. So, I drew Nolafus again, but this time, he was hugging his eldest son Badron after they found out Nolafus' wife and Badron's mom died. You want to know what I learned? Drawing bodies is hard to say the least. I mean, I don't think I'm that bad at drawing, but bodies are awful to draw. D:

I'm not very proud of this particular drawing, but I guess it's a start. If anyone has any tips for drawing better bodies, please let me know.

Slayr231 said:

Okay, I managed to finish one more drawing before finals really kicked in.

I finally decided to give drawing bodies a shot. So, I drew Nolafus again, but this time, he was hugging his eldest son Badron after they found out Nolafus' wife and Badron's mom died. You want to know what I learned? Drawing bodies is hard to say the least. I mean, I don't think I'm that bad at drawing, but bodies are awful to draw. D:

Spoiler:

I'm not very proud of this particular drawing, but I guess it's a start. If anyone has any tips for drawing better bodies, please let me know.

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THE ART & DESIGN RESOURCE THREAD THAT I PAINSTAKINGLY BUILT WITH MY OWN DAMN HANDS WOULD BE A PRETTY GOOD PLACE TO START I REALLY WORKED HARD ON OBTAINING ACCURATE AND RELIABLE ANATOMICAL STUDIES. /( .□.)\ ︵╰(゜益゜)╯︵ /(.□. /)

LOOK IT'S RIGHT HERE

Hehe, I'm just poking some fun. n_n; Your drawing isn't nearly as bad as you think it is. You actually have your proportions down quite well. The ratio from head to torso to legs is done fairly well, or at least I think so considering your characters are lizards. If possible, I would like to see a close up of sorts, to have a better look. I think what you're lacking in that drawing is detail in the clothing. Clothing falls and bends according to the body, and I don't see any real stress against the knee or falling at the ankles. Try to keep in mind how clothing not only looks, but feels. Depending on the position, there's tension in the fabric and that can be represented by stress lines or relief lines at the fall, if that makes sense.

I'll do some a red line for you later on, but try to practice a more fluid and dynamic style. Don't worry about how anything looks (what I mean is don't worry about if their heads are twice as big as they should be or anything). When you're doodling on your own, remember that bodies, either alien or human, aren't static. They flooowww~ ヾ（*⌒ヮ⌒*）ゞ

Strawberry said:

THE ART & DESIGN RESOURCE THREAD THAT I PAINSTAKINGLY BUILT WITH MY OWN DAMN HANDS WOULD BE A PRETTY GOOD PLACE TO START I REALLY WORKED HARD ON OBTAINING ACCURATE AND RELIABLE ANATOMICAL STUDIES. /( .□.)\ ︵╰(゜益゜)╯︵ /(.□. /)

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It's a funny thing, you're going to laugh I swear. I actually checked that right before I made a gallery and swore I would check back in if I had any questions. But then I forgot. Wasn't that funny? Don't kill me! D:

Strawberry said:

Hehe, I'm just poking some fun. n_n; Your drawing isn't nearly as bad as you think it is. You actually have your proportions down quite well. The ratio from head to torso to legs is done fairly well, or at least I think so considering your characters are lizards. If possible, I would like to see a close up of sorts, to have a better look. I think what you're lacking in that drawing is detail in the clothing. Clothing falls and bends according to the body, and I don't see any real stress against the knee or falling at the ankles. Try to keep in mind how clothing not only looks, but feels. Depending on the position, there's tension in the fabric and that can be represented by stress lines or relief lines at the fall, if that makes sense.

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Yeah, I know I have to work on the clothes. I think my biggest concern was that since I was only used to doing close up portraits, that I couldn't fit in as much detail as I wanted to. I actually took the time to draw out all the scales with a pencil, but when I went to color it in, all the scales were rubbed away. That was a little disappointing...

But I'll definitely be checking out that thread that you so lovingly put together and pointed out for me.

This time, I have two drawings to show! My winter break just started so I finally got to finish one I've been working on for a while now and then do another drawing that didn't take that much time, but I still like it. You know what? I think I'm starting to get the hang of this drawing stuff. Before I felt like I was stumbling in the dark, and for most of my drawings, I went through a couple rough drafts before I actually got to a place that I was semi-happy. However, these next couple of drawings were completed on one sheet of paper! There was a lot of erasing, but I didn't have to start over on either of them! :D

First up, a drawing inspired by Sonatron's Mega-Evolution gallery (found here). I decided to try and draw what Serperior might look like with a mega-evolution. I really wanted to make it look more intimidating, and I hope I succeeded.
Not my best shading job, but I think it still turned out pretty good.

This next drawing I have been working on and off on for about a week now. I couldn't really put that much time into it until today because I was finishing up my first quarter of college, but I powered through it today and I'm really proud of it. It's a Skull Dragon. I'm not exactly sure what in the world a Skull Dragon is, but the more I drew and shaded its face, the more it looked like a skull. So, I named it a Skull Dragon.
I think this drawing is my favorite so far and I'm really proud of it.

Tell me what you think! :D

Has it really been a year since I've posted in here?

Anyway, I've gotten the urge to draw again, and so I poured my heart and soul into a drawing that took me a good eight to ten hours to draw out. Unfortunately, I didn't take any colored pencils when I moved out, so I'm back to black and white. I still think the drawing turned out pretty good, and it's definitely my best one yet. However, this took forever to draw out, and I'm going to need to have some serious inspiration before I tackle another big drawing like this one, haha.

It's a drawing of Galio, my favorite character in League of Legends, shielding his creator from the rain as they head back from grocery shopping, or whatever.


Let me know what you guys think! I would appreciate any and all feedback.