an illegible mess's super-duper mega awesome art thread.

[an illegible mess.]

ok, maybe not.

yes, my name is an illegible mess and i like to draw woofs.

tons of woofs.

like, everything i draw is woofs.

i draw pokemon sometimes, but it's rare.

whatever, here you go. have some of my craptastic art.

WARNING: some of the pictures may contain a lot of gore. don't like it? oh well. put your big girl panties on and deal with it.

most of the stuff i draw are vents from my private life. NEVER ask me what went wrong or anything. i will beat you with a stick. they're called PERSONAL ARTWORKS for a reason. thank you.

programs i use for digital art: gimp 2.6 and sometimes paint. (note: i do NOT use a tablet. i use a regular laptop mouse)

tools i use for traditional art: red sharpie pens, sakura pigma sensei manga pens (sizes: 0.3 mm, 0.4 mm, 0.6 mm, 1.0 mm), regular ballpoint pens, mechanical pencils, bic markers, prismacolor colored pencils, staedtler ergosoft watercolor colored pencils, i also sometimes use regular watercolors.

now on to my art:

Spoiler:

that's all i'll show for now.

deviantart accounts:
main account: wingsofstarlight
side account (mainly where i post my vents): an-illegible-mess

not really necessary, but critiques are greatly appreciated so i can stop sucking and be good for once.

asdfghjkl.

questions? comments? insults? post below.

EDIT;; this post is old and not up to date. my new art threads can be viewed here:

2012
2013-2015

 

[Renyui!]

/hipster drawings

But for reals yo, I don't mind them. The theme of it all is cool, and I don't really find anything a huge issue (well, from my perspective). The only thing that irks my is the quality of the brushing in the digital ones. Are you using paint or something similar? Cause I'd definitely recommend photoshop if you can lay your hands on it.

[edit]

Yeah i'd say try to stick gimp as much as you can over paint, buuuuut I don't really know gimp well, so I can't really instruct you on it D:

Also I very much enjoy the absol/arcanine one and the 'i don't care' piece. They are pretty sweet and very individual for this forum.

 

[Trent_Jayir]

Hello! It's nice to meet you.
You have some very interesting things in here. Your strongest piece I think, both conceptually and compositionally is the one with the wolf laying down, looking towards the viewer. with 'nobody said'

I really like that one. it's such an interesting angle, it looks so quiet and defeated and sad. It's showing so much feeling in that one.

One thing I'd recommend (even though I understand your art is just venting) is to change your technique when drawing lines. The kind of sketchy lots of little scribble lines, although they can feel great to draw are really not the best way to be going about it.

When I'm getting stressed I do continuous line drawings (One long line, if it 'goes wrong' you leave it, never take the pen/cil off the page). These can be very stress relieving too. And you can scribble in darker areas, but over all the effect will be greater, I'd be really interested to see what you produced if you tried it. :')

Thanks for sharing, I hope you decide to stay here more!

 

[Sheep]

I agree with the above about your strongest piece being the bleeding wolf looking at the viewer; it almost makes me feel like I'm guilty of having done something for that to happen, which is great since emotion is pretty difficult to get across.

As for suggestions, I personally think you should work on full-bodies. Most of your pieces don't go past the neck and your single piece that does have full-body has some minor anatomy issues, so I'm sure it'd be worthwhile to practice :) It's nothing some time can't fix!

Keep drawing and I'm looking forward for more! :3

 

[an illegible mess.]

haha, thanks guys. i thought i would never get feedback xD.

well, the one with the wolf laying down WAS a very, very, very personal piece that i did when i was in a near-suicidal experience. and the full text was "nobody said it was easy" xD the camera cut it off.

i do start off with sketches, and i've begun to outline them with pens now. i got the sketchiness from my grandmother who was known for her sketches. typically something small like that takes hours for me.

yeah, i do have some anatomy issues xD. i need anatomy lessons badly. i used to do a lot of full on body sketches but kind of stopped to focus on the head more. i just recently got back into drawing full body stuff.

and yes, i did manage to get photoshop elements. i use it for more graphical stuff though and not drawing. i also got a tablet as well, so i do stuff more digitally now.

anyway, a piece i was particularly proud of:

Spoiler:

this one was pretty personal as well.

 

[Halmtier]

Well, you weren't lying when you said that you liked drawing 'woofs'. Haha
The sketchy and jagged lines you use definitely show a more frantic and emotional state in your drawings. And as for venting, drawing really is good for that! I like the newest one you just posted, the test around the wolf looks like fur, or abstract lines at first, then it registers as actually being text. A cool effect.

 

[Overlord Drakow]

The one with Absol and Arcanine is my favourite. I would prefer a bit of diversity in your work, but whatever suits you man.

 

[groteske]

yeah, i do have some anatomy issues xD. i need anatomy lessons badly. i used to do a lot of full on body sketches but kind of stopped to focus on the head more. i just recently got back into drawing full body stuff.

anyway, a piece i was particularly proud of:


this one was pretty personal as well.

First off, get over yourself and lose the self-pity; art is inherently personal - the amount of "verys" attached does not exacerbate this - and self-pity is extremely unattractive and juvenile. Not quite the impression you want to give when presenting artwork to an audience.

The emotion is present in all these pieces, but the technical execution weakens each. What's more appealing - clean lines placed with purpose, or uncertain hairy sketch marks? It takes years to develop confidence and style, but you can shorten the process by thinking before marking. Consider what you're trying to convey. Most of these are analogous to stream-of-consciousness-type writing - no considerable forethought = weak composition, across all fields of art. Unless you're drawing for yourself, you have to help your audience connect with your pieces to understand the emotions you're trying to convey. A bunch of hidden clues and secrets may make for a strong piece to you, but it probably looks like nonsense to another viewer.

For example - and before your hackles raise further, I'm not concerned in the least about what event in your life sparked these - what is going on with Bloodspattered Newspaper Wolf? I get the trapped feeling from the clues on the face, but the newspaper's presence does little for the composition and the scrawled black border looks ridiculous. Why are there blood spatters at all? They don't do anything except provide minimal shock value. Why are these components present? Bad news? Death? A wolf with its mouth bound, bleeding from the eyes, facing impending doom via scrawly spikes isn't exactly clear. A replacement of anthropomorphic subjects could do wonders.

Second image.. all I get is anger and frustration, which combines with the sketchy quality to translate to teen angst. The last piece - "I feel nothing anymore" - is a stronger version, if only due to the added detail of the bullet wound, which serves as a more straightforward indication of mental anguish. Nice work on the teeth of both. Fresh blood has a darker, crimson hue, while dried blood tends to be closer to burnt sienna. Combining different colors will make the piece more visually appealing. You can color the wolves, too. Not sure where you're going with the text, in any of these; it does nothing but make the pieces look juvenile. Your work should stand on its own and not require the crutch of an explanatory phrase.

Third piece is the strongest, because the emotion is conveyed with the most clarity and it's an interesting perspective. The blood does nothing, again; the piece could be made more cohesive by making the pool black and connecting somehow with the tear running down the wolf's face. Would've been more interesting had you given the blood pool a visible source, or, were the situation appropriate, tossed some bloody mats across some areas of fur indicating a struggle, i.e. anguished decision. Your signature is visually appealing, but too distinctive in this piece to be this close to the subject - however, you could drag a long, sloping line from the tear to form the first letter of the signature to integrate it into the piece.

Fourth - very, very, very weak. Complete lack of detail, visually uninteresting, uninspiring placement of components.

The full-body wolf is a good practice exercise for anatomy. I'll take this opportunity to note that by your pieces, your primary references are anime/manga-style artwork, and not reality, to be succinct. In order to make the manga style work, one has to be an extremely strong artist and provide a unique perspective on it; otherwise, it's excruciatingly cliche and tiresome.

Working from realism will bolster your observational skills and make your pieces more effective by giving the reader a leg-up in understanding your work, because they can instantly understand WOLF! - and that simple validation will make the viewer more receptive to what the piece is conveying.

Besides a zoo, you likely don't have the opportunity for real-life study, so take advantage of the internet and sketch the sh-t out of everything you see. To do this effectively you must FORGET what you've already perceived, and force your brain to work strictly objectively - in layman's terms, pretend you've never seen a wolf, and draw the creature exactly as the photograph shows. Do this, then keep doing this, from several perspectives, and keep doing that, and you will develop both an "eye" and a muscle memory from which you can develop your own style. You're also honing observational skills - further developing existing brain pathways - which will make drawing other subjects from reference easier as well. It's tedious practice but WELL F-CKING WORTH IT.

Keep it up.

 

[an illegible mess.]

thanks for the reviews guys *dies* i haven't been in this thread for a while.

eh, i do have my tablet but the virtual art i've done is crap. plus windows crashed on my laptop because of a virus and now i have to use my ubuntu os which doesn't support the tablet software ajdakdmskas. /frustrated.

speaking of frustration.

i was pissed off today.

drew this.

hope u liek.

Spoiler: