Show us your drawings/artwork

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Thanks Spengos. It's absolutely possible with a mouse, if you wish to dedicate months to a weapon :p So yeah definitely use a tablet. I use a Cintiq personally and I love it, but they're expensive and I wouldn't recommend buying one unless this is a full time thing AND after you've tried a regular tablet first.

Yeah I poly model in Maya now after making the switch from 3DS Max a few months back when I started my new job, all the texture work is purely Photoshop and painting, no photo reference mixed in.
These weapons have taught me a lot about colour so they were worthwhile, practice is the best thing I can advise. I looked at the work by the artists at Blizzard, tried to decipher it and replicate it in my own designs.

I'll typically do a concept, take it into Maya as a reference plane and poly model it from there, I UV it in Maya to. Once UV'd I'll hack up my concept in Photoshop to fit the UV so I can get a rough idea of what it will look like in 3D space. From there I'll usually paint from scratch again, I sometimes maintain some of the values/colour from the concept if I like it.
 
Soldato
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Dammit, where's that post/guide you wrote about creating this style? I've got to source me some materials and give it a shot, love it.
All you need is paper, some artist ink pens & a pencil.

At a high level, find reference picture - play around with brightness contrast settings, reduce the amount of colours (this bit takes a bit of getting used to, experience with photo-shop helps).

Split the image into distinct layers so you know what you will be drawing, edit bits which don't work/look right & play around further.

Once you get the black sections isolated simple sketch them on paper (all the time checking to make sure you get the main proportions correct (absolutely critical, with the style you only really need to get the head/face/eyes/mouth or other key body part shapes/sizes accurate for it to work).

The black sketch takes me about 1/3 of the total drawing time, as I have to keep rubbing out/redoing sections which don't look quite right - as once you put ink to paper there is no going back. Once you have the black done, it's mostly just a case of doing block shading, for this I compare against the original reference mostly, but with the black base which took the most time it doesn't take long.
 
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Still really great stuff in this thread, funny that shifty_uk 'hates' his landscape because I really quite like it.

LanceCrossfire, those are great, I have a friend who is pretty good at doing stylized textures, I've tried but they always look terrible.

Elmarko, still really like your work, do you have much knowledge of anatomy or do you rely pretty much soley on the technique you mention? Also can't remember if I asked this before but do you do much pure monochrome drawing?
 
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Another freehand painting, getting a bit better but still not right. Only the 3rd person I've ever painted to be fair to myself.

Airbrush and pencils using the ArtRage 4 demo
KAotzOd.jpg
 
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Elmarko, still really like your work, do you have much knowledge of anatomy or do you rely pretty much soley on the technique you mention? Also can't remember if I asked this before but do you do much pure monochrome drawing?
I spent quite a bit of time using z-brush & other sculpture software learning form/figure - I also did an hour a day doing gestural drawing of the human form for a couple of months to help, mostly it just means I don't have to look at my reference as much as I used to, it also has aided in learning what's important to get perfect & what doesn't matter if it's a bit off.

For example, I've found in my style, just getting the eyes & mouth correct in a face is 80% of the way there, the hair doesn't really matter.

I still essentially draw loads of component pieces, then turn it into a picture - but as I've learned more anatomy it's enabled me to be a less 'mechanistic' & more free.

It's still quite a laborious method to get the black in, but as long as you are willing to use half a tonne of rubber getting the positioning perfect it seems to work OK.

I've done a couple in colour, but mostly monochromatic - part because I like the style, the other being that for each colour I need another 5 pens (as they don't mix).

This was my last colour one

hulk___promarker_pens_by_darkelmarko-d6fao4i.jpg


But I'm not as keen on it.

Really, I'd love to be able to do concept style art (like Lance) - along with sketch style landscapes (like shiftys) but I just can't get the hang of it - I'm a little bit too mechanistic in my style & rely on reference material - I draw what I see still :/
 
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I spent quite a bit of time using z-brush & other sculpture software learning form/figure - I also did an hour a day doing gestural drawing of the human form for a couple of months to help, mostly it just means I don't have to look at my reference as much as I used to, it also has aided in learning what's important to get perfect & what doesn't matter if it's a bit off.

Thanks for the info, I'd like to get decent at sketching, I've long been a fan of pencil drawings in particular, I'll have to make a concerted effort to do more. Thing is, I mentioned on here buying a piano, which I did, I had a goal of learning a song that while not particularly difficult, I thought would probably take me a good while to get to grips with, but I've already learned it and it's only stupid, needless mistakes that plague me really.

However I can't apply the same learning techniques with drawing, with music I play so badly so often... but it doesn't matter because headphones on, no one hears and they are gone as soon as you've played them. :p

But I find drawing badly really hard to do (lol, yet too easy to achieve), I know I should just sit down with a block of printer paper and reel them off, but it isn't enough just to draw and spend the time, you've got to put serious effort into it. Playing the piano badly doesn't seem to phase me at all, but putting my all into a drawing and having it look so ****, it just gets me down. Even though I can see clearly the parallel of learning and evolving as with anything else. I didn't need to record my bad playing to revisit and learn, maybe I should just get a shredder and shred as I go so I don't build up a catalogue of crap images to haunt me.

Sad, but that's me.

I've done a couple in colour, but mostly monochromatic - part because I like the style, the other being that for each colour I need another 5 pens (as they don't mix).

I see what you mean about needing all the pens, that is a pain. I don't know why but I always attribute the word monochrome in art to being black and white. What I meant to ask was have you done many trying to define the detail just using pure black? I can't recall having seen many lately but I always used to enjoy hand drawn pictures that used that technique.

This was my last colour one

HULK

But I'm not as keen on it.

Well it's still impressive, but I know what you mean. I think it can be difficult to get coloured characters to look right on a blank background. Hulk, I mean he isn't a very subtle colour anyway and he doesn't have much in the way of clothing/accessories to help contrast it, but I don't really know, perhaps a medium you can blend might suit you.

Cheers.
 
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Thanks for the info, I'd like to get decent at sketching, I've long been a fan of pencil drawings in particular, I'll have to make a concerted effort to do more. Thing is, I mentioned on here buying a piano, which I did, I had a goal of learning a song that while not particularly difficult, I thought would probably take me a good while to get to grips with, but I've already learned it and it's only stupid, needless mistakes that plague me really.

However I can't apply the same learning techniques with drawing, with music I play so badly so often... but it doesn't matter because headphones on, no one hears and they are gone as soon as you've played them. :p

But I find drawing badly really hard to do (lol, yet too easy to achieve), I know I should just sit down with a block of printer paper and reel them off, but it isn't enough just to draw and spend the time, you've got to put serious effort into it. Playing the piano badly doesn't seem to phase me at all, but putting my all into a drawing and having it look so ****, it just gets me down. Even though I can see clearly the parallel of learning and evolving as with anything else. I didn't need to record my bad playing to revisit and learn, maybe I should just get a shredder and shred as I go so I don't build up a catalogue of crap images to haunt me.
Haha, I've binned more drawings than I've kept :D, I just don't post it when it goes wrong.

As time progresses it happens less often, but one slip with a black pen - or if I'm not paying attention on a key area when sketching it can easily go all wrong.

I do know what you mean though, as I play guitar myself - a mistake simply costs that verse say, or better still I can continue like nothing happened as it's not stored anywhere for me to hear it again.

But I did find when I started recording music, the mistakes grated me much much more than when just playing. Drawing is closer to recording music for the way you can't ignore mistakes & carry on.

Sad, but that's me.

I see what you mean about needing all the pens, that is a pain. I don't know why but I always attribute the word monochrome in art to being black and white. What I meant to ask was have you done many trying to define the detail just using pure black? I can't recall having seen many lately but I always used to enjoy hand drawn pictures that used that technique.

Well it's still impressive, but I know what you mean. I think it can be difficult to get coloured characters to look right on a blank background. Hulk, I mean he isn't a very subtle colour anyway and he doesn't have much in the way of clothing/accessories to help contrast it, but I don't really know, perhaps a medium you can blend might suit you.

Cheers.
Yeah, used to do them on canvas, but painting - but I don't have anywhere near the same level of control as I do with the ink pens.

I'd like to give just black a bash, but it gets closer to silhouette style (which I like, but uses too much ink!).

As with all things It's just time spent really, got to get those hours in!.
 
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There was a thread started on here to help people learn to draw, there's some decent links in there if you can find it. It kinda died because people really weren't into sharing :(
 
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There was a thread started on here to help people learn to draw, there's some decent links in there if you can find it. It kinda died because people really weren't into sharing :(

Thanks, I can understand that it can be hard for people to articulate the way they go about things enough for it to be meaningful, and for me even if I improved it'd probably be a long time before I felt comfortable dishing out advice. I'll have a look around though.

As it is I think I have enough resources, I just need to shake that feeling, a bit like having an audience peering over my shoulder when I sketch, it's an odd one.
 
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Artist tribute to photojournalist Kevin Carter.

starvation_2_by_darkelmarko-d6rqad7.jpg


Really hard to get the background which such a limited pallet, should have done this one in colour & could have used a soft tan ground to give it greater depth - ahh well, always next time.
 
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It looks good, I didn't think there was anything wrong with the background, but you will know what you are capable of. I know of Kevin Carter though I'm not that familiar with his works, I know that photo though.

Ever thought about making social commentary with your artwork, do you find it tricky without references?
 
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3 hour drawing, not happy with the shading on the left cheek - hair scrappy as usual :/.

Fortunately the eyes capture the likeness enough for me not to bin it, also I used up 2 black ink pens to do the 'background'... so didn't want to waste that either!.

Cersei Lannister

lady_lannister_by_darkelmarko-d6sc8ln.jpg
 
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another image form me :3

bP6xEKCl.jpg
You really have that concept style pinned down perfectly.

Great stuff :).

It looks good, I didn't think there was anything wrong with the background, but you will know what you are capable of. I know of Kevin Carter though I'm not that familiar with his works, I know that photo though.

Ever thought about making social commentary with your artwork, do you find it tricky without references?
I'm just not big on backgrounds - I find it hard to focus on what's essentially nothing lol.

I've done a couple of political/social commentary pieces some time ago, but still at my parents & done before I had everything stored digitally, interesting field.

Yeah, Kevin Carter did loads of wartime & famine photography - some great pictures, a shame he killed himself tbh, I could imagine witnessing that kind of thing being difficult - his suicide note I always found quite moving.

""I am depressed ... without phone ... money for rent ... money for child support ... money for debts ... money!!! ... I am haunted by the vivid memories of killings and corpses and anger and pain ... of starving or wounded children, of trigger-happy madmen, often police, of killer executioners ... I have gone to join Ken if I am that lucky."
 
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Soldato
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One more done, really fun this one as I've drawn him loads of times before so was pretty easy (compared to the last few).

About 5 hours, took only two attempts to get the sketch right (Had to chuck the first one as went into using the ink too quickly! - need to learn some patience).

boba_fett_by_darkelmarko-d6sil2b.jpg
 
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