I must be a masochist [Gallery 4]

[Amaruuk]

I'm probably kidding myself again, but it seems that the main art section has got some more activity in it since last I attempted to make a thread last more than a couple'a days. Hopefully the same fate won't befall this one. I warn you, pretty much none of this will be fanart. I hardly do it anymore, and if I do it's not likely to be more than little doodles or sketches. I reserve the energy I need for working hard on big stuff for my original ideas and pieces. Hopefully that won't cause premature thread-death this time. As always, these pieces and more can be found in my deviantART gallery (linked in my siggy).


So, without further ado, here is the art:


Title: I'm Always Here
Description: Kina (old design) tries to convince the gold dragon to let her be there for him. This painting is about a year old now, so no crit on it, please. I'm mostly putting it here 'cause it was a significant painting that didn't make it into my last thread.

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Title: To Part the Clouds
Description: A sea dragon makes the sun come out again on a gloomy day. My first serious attempt at being Lily a decent, dynamic composition. This is also pretty old now.

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Title: Kina II
Description: Kinarii was redesigned last November. I was on a colored pencil binge at the time, too.

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Title: Kaegro Ixen
Description: My (then brand-new) boyfriend and I thought it'd be cool if I made him a character shortly after having redone Kina.

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Title: Sunset Sailing
Description: This is actually a four-part watercolor painting I did in late January, then scanned and assembled it in Photoshop. I had no reference available to me where I was, so I didn't pull off the look of 'really tall tree towering over the tops of other trees' very well.

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Title: Stone Serpent
Description: This was actually inspired by my boyfriend agonizing over a calculus test at GA Tech. I don't think I pulled off the depth/dynamism as well as I wanted to, but I'm still proud of this painting.

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Title: Kingdom of the Art Gods
Description: Basically it's an outward manifestation of feeling horribly insignificant. The kingdom's concept itself was inspired both by Lily's godly cloud rendering ability and a New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh binge I was on at the time (specifically inspired by Eeyore's cloud-painting).

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[Amaruuk]

Almost 3 months later, here's an art bump to at least make another attempt to justify having made a fourth gallery to begin with (I can do that, right?) and not make a fifth one. I am not going to paint again until my fancy custom desktop's built (I have the money now, though), but I have sketched things. Mostly practice of human faces and scenery.

I keep a Blogger blog now where I put unfinished/in-progress/practice work, so maybe go check that out, too :3

Human faces:

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Scenery and other doodles:

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Might as well throw in these two school projects, though they're both half a year old now, and I already know their flaws:

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[Stellar]

I know I mentioned this before, but I'm incredibly envious of your backgrounds. They've got this beautiful storybook quality to them (especially in the case of "Kingdom of the Art Gods" and "To Part the Clouds," both of which happen to be my favorites). I'm especially fond of "Kingdom of the Art Gods" because you managed to communicate the feeling of insignificance so well, which, in my opinion, is how art should truly be judged - whether the artist was able to complete the goal they had in mind when they started the piece.

Your sketches are amazing too. A lot of people (like myself) are really only able to draw one single face with the only variants being hairstyle, eye color, etc. But you're able to draw the face unique to the character, which is a lot harder to do IMO.

I'm also in love with that turtle with the feathered flippers. It seems like such a neat concept, and the heart pattern on its back is so sweet. <3

 

[Amaruuk]

Thanks so much! Haha, if my backgrounds make you jealous, you must not have seen Lily's. Her work tends to influence mine, and may well be the driving force behind my improvement in background-painting over time.

But in all seriousness, yeah, I guess I do them decently enough. There's always room for improvement.

On the people sketches, that was exactly the reason I did them - to practice making a myriad of them and honing a style at the same time. I think it's really tough to vary female faces, though, unless you make them old and haggard. Variety seems to come much easier to male faces, perhaps because one doesn't have to try and make them male as much as one has to try and make a female face look female.

The key to making different faces is remembering that for everything on the face - nose, eyes, chin, hairline, ears, etc. - there are countless ways in which each part can be shaped and countless proportions that can be employed, and all of them come together to form a character. Hair, facial hair, and tidbits like scars, tattoos, or piercings are just icing on the cake for that extra pop, but they can also tell even more about your character.

 

[christyan]

awesome i love the colors

 

[Stellar]

Thanks so much! Haha, if my backgrounds make you jealous, you must not have seen Lily's. Her work tends to influence mine, and may well be the driving force behind my improvement in background-painting over time.

Trust me, I've browsed her dA gallery many times before and I can totally see how she inspires your work. She's one of many inspirations to me, that's for sure. Just don't let her influence you too much. I always say that it's better to learn from another artist than to idolize them, because I've made that mistake way too many times in the past.

On the people sketches, that was exactly the reason I did them - to practice making a myriad of them and honing a style at the same time. I think it's really tough to vary female faces, though, unless you make them old and haggard. Variety seems to come much easier to male faces, perhaps because one doesn't have to try and make them male as much as one has to try and make a female face look female.

I agree, it is a lot more difficult to vary female faces. But unfortunately that's one reason why I find them easier to draw. Men always seem to require more... definition? in certain places, whereas with women I'm able to keep my lines soft and curvy. Age does play a big role in it though, but maybe that's why I keep coming up with female characters in their late teens/early twenties. :/

The key to making different faces is remembering that for everything on the face - nose, eyes, chin, hairline, ears, etc. - there are countless ways in which each part can be shaped and countless proportions that can be employed, and all of them come together to form a character. Hair, facial hair, and tidbits like scars, tattoos, or piercings are just icing on the cake for that extra pop, but they can also tell even more about your character.

I'll have to keep that in mind. I should practice them like you did and maybe sit and think about the character I'm trying to flesh out. Like I said, I don't usually give it much thought but that's something I'd like to work on.

 

[Amaruuk]

Believe me, Lily isn't the only member of my Pantheon of Art Gods. There are lots of others, and nature itself is the best teacher. And even if I wanted to, I literally can't work in another's style.

Yeah, just sit down and think about what you want a person to be like, and think what sort of bits would give that impression. I used to have a book all about face reading that went really in detail about all the aspects of a face and what different variants of each thing might say about the personality. There's a reason that certain combinations of things give off certain impressions.

 

[Doctor Who]

Kingdom of the Ar Gods is amaing, I love the way rainbows flow form the skies, but also the clouds look incredible with the pastel colours and a texture I could almost touch!

 

[Amaruuk]

Thank you! I appreciate the commentary :3

Here's another pencil piece I finished today. It's little more than a glorified sketch, but I actually put it up in my dA gallery, too. I had an idea to take a certain three of my dragons, assign elements (fire, water, and earth) to them, and draw them in a circle. I might take this concept further and do some tribal vectors with them in this elemental theme, since that was originally how I was going to do it anyway.

The piece is titled Trinity.

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