Digital Ask Laurence (Old Messy Thread)

Thank you! When I think about it, Samantha and Daniel are two of the very few characters I actually designed for a purpose (Samantha to look like a business-woman, Daniel to look like a cool guy). Then again, I usually draw the character and base their personality off of the drawing--I'm weird like that.

The battle between how the kids feel about their circumstances to how their parents feel about it (as well as even how the reader is suggested to feel about it) is sort of a theme in the story. The kids are mostly fine with their lives, with Fenna even finding it odd that other kids are close to their parents (similar to how I found it odd that everyone else had married parents and owned their homes).

For the notebook, all I can say is look at what I was making on the first page of this thread and compare it to what I can make now. It's only been just over a year, and I haven't even been drawing every day. All I can say is--go for it. Get drawing and don't stop. If ever you feel like you're not improving, try figuring out what you're doing wrong, and try mixing up your current style. Most importantly, find both a motivation and a spark--for me, the motivation was to draw the giant story I had in my head (and later Laurence and other projects and now Bionicles (because I'm a goober) and my current story) and the spark was in was in a tutorial on drawing comic characters which just communicated it all really well (it wasn't "here's how to draw a man smiling with a hand on his hip," but "here's how to draw a face, and we do it again, and again, and again, and different every time, and now you do it").

In short: Yes. You don't even need a fancy notebook with nice pencils--I still use lined paper and mechanical pencils, and have only used nicer stuff in art class to make the good stuff, like portraits and the like. Just get some paper, get some pencils, and start drawing.

(To continue my ranting I'd also suggest looking up how to outline, looking up some basic drawing workouts (drawing lines through dots, drawing circles, etc. There are a good few you could find), and practicing to draw in light, fluid strokes (hard lines are gross and can't erase, and little 'hair' lines are messy and don't look as solid).

Thank you! I honestly can't say I've been trying all that hard recently (quick doodles and rapid writes), so I guess that's a relatively good sign.

Anyhow, I gave blood today, and felt inspired to crack the age-old joke:

He probably drank it afterwards, too. Fella has no standards.

ANYHOW, I'm gonna take my semi-lightheaded self over somewhere that I won't babble my head off (apparently losing life essence makes me talkative, and typative to boot).

Keep your veins healthy,
--Vurrunna

 

Knowing him, he'd probably draw the line at 110% coffee...

 

Hmm, I find this all very interesting. I don't know if I've ever mentioned this around these parts before but I've tried many times throughout my childhood to take up drawing and it's just never worked out. Hell, I've even got a book on how to draw in an anime style and in a comic book style. Both of which never helped me much, or maybe I just didn't listen to them. Either way I mostly just stuck to writing. I wonder I could apply the same concepts to that. I get tons of ideas for scenes in my head but when I go to write them down I always realize that it's mostly just dialogue and I lack details. It's always bothered me that I can imagine two scenes but I can't figure out what happens in between them.

 

This is a few years worth of drawings in a stack. I didn't start drawing daily until somewhat recently-ish.

It is the only reason I am any good. I have almost never used any books, classes, tutorials or whatnot. I just draw a lot.

 

Personally I started out by tracing about like a couple things to work on line work and such, then I started to draw things, for example the picture on my sonic heros playstation disc. It was pretty bad, but I was proud of myself. So I decided to continue, there were always those people who could DRAW and when I say that I mean like draw really well, almost without trying. To be honest, it is kinda for me a Rock lee shorta thing, I never started out at my (meh) level, but I ended up working up to this point after much dedication, (I've been drawing since I was about 5 and now I am about to graduate) so to be honest, a picture book is something you just learn guide lines on. And possibly tracing and linework.


Also a common misconception is that you can't draw, if it is anything it is bad linework. If you want to draw an anime character and can't, it doesn't mean you can't draw, it means it isn't part of your style. (personally the reason so many art teachers hate that kinda art style is due to the fact of how common and unremarkable it has become as everyone does it). Another problem is that trying to copy someone's art style adds a bit of it to yours. So if you learn how to draw eyes that you like from pokemon or something, you use those eyes throughout other works until (if you ever do) find another eye style you like. This is where experimentation comes in, the goal for me is to find a good balance between simple/unique/looks good. If you want to know how artists view art books lets just say it is actually exactly like this:


1.) draw your guide lines. 2.) Add some basic shapes and or body shapes to distinguish them. 3.) fill in the rest needed. 4.) shade, add minor details, and fix your linework.

I am not even kidding... trust me, you might just be better off just grabbing an empty notebook and after writing one of your stories try to draw a scene from what you wrote or a character. ALSO while it is good to have a character in the picture don't put yourself in a rut by only drawing facing the camera or looking 30 degrees from the camera, work on some scenes where it is coming from the characters foot facing up past their face and maybe while they are running or something. To be honest, you can only improve if you challenge yourself. I try to challenge my simplicity via speed paints, and see how I can create something recognizable, at least to me within a small 30s-1min period. As I find I am always very slow. Another trick is to use that creativity sponge you have up there. You ever look at a random thing, be it a carpet or an outlet, or maybe even tree bark and see a face? GOOD, you got a good set of eyes. Now draw them as a character. Now take them and change their personality. Now then, you seem to have created a character from nothing. Feeling up to the task, wobble you hand around when drawing a sloppy closed shape. Now look at it and try to find a face in that shape, found it? No? If you can't find one add a nose, a nose shapes the face and from there you can create a personality, and face. Congratulations, you ended up with an abomination of a character!

But these abominations can help you grow as an artist, and some don't even look to bad, you might end up keeping one for later projects, I know I have. Feeling like you got this down? Now try to take the time and draw a full very detailed person in a pose, not good? Thought so. Now try again... and again... and again. Still not good? Don't worry it will never be to you. Now try to draw the opposite sex. (unless you haven't already, if that is the case just draw your self). Also feel free to reference, aka steal someones art for a piece of it, like the eyes, hands, or something. Maybe even the character, now when you are drawing, you HAVE to make it do something that is not like the picture you took it... or exactly like the picture, but with a different background and character. (I would say more, but I do want to sleep tomorrow, so I'll let you figure it out from there)

 

Couldn't agree more--a few of those are things I've done in the past (I once used scribbles as a method to come up knights--it was pretty cool, even with my crummy middle school ability), and a few others are things I should probably do more (angles are not my strong suit--I ought to work on it).

As it happens, I was even doing some practice just a second ago. Nothing spectacular or particularly interesting, but:

I decided to try going back to the stock pen I normally use, except now I put an effort into how thick my lines were (the eye-rims still came out a bit thick because of how quick and hard I draw eyes, unfortunately, but now it just looks like she has mascara, making it one of the few times I've drawn makeup on a character). I also did some line shading, including a quick job to save the shirt from looking like a really gross and cheap attempt at plaid. The hair looks nice, though, I think.

As a side note, discussing art and how to better art things (art being a verb, of course) is one of my favorite things to do. I have the capacity to rant about it quite a bit (sometimes I could write paragraphs about how I shaded the left arm compared to the right in a 15-minute sketch). Though not as much as a certain individual I know can talk about a certain story concerning bio-mechanical beings and Kanohi-masks.

Don't let the Rahkshi get ya,
--Vurrunna

 

Bionicles! Woo yeah!

 

I had the green one and the blue one. My brother had the red one, my other brother had the Black one and the Brown one. Shhhh, it's a secret.

 

Not growing up with this I feel my childhood is missing something only a action figure comprised of small "child safe" plastic pieces can bring.

 

Nah legos > bionicles any day for me. Heck I'd still play with legos if I had a new set in front of me, and I'm legally an adult now.

 

Why love only one when you can love both? c:

I still have a bix box of legos and another full of bionicles waiting in my room

 

Some adults make a living off of building with legos

 

When I was younger I wanted to do that.

 

LEgos are great

 

Same though

 

Legos are really fun, but Bionicles have a ridiculously bigger-than-you'd-imagine storyline which I've become over-smitten with for entirely foolish reasons. For building and play, Legos take the ball every time, but "generic cityscape," "typical medieval knights," and a menagerie of pre-established stories just don't stand up to "bio-mechanical warriors fighting to preserve the Three Virtues and protect the Matoran from the dark forces of Makuta."

Speaking of Bionicle, I've started having trouble listening to Bonnie Tyler's "Holding Out for a Hero" (because, ya know, we all listen to that song on a pretty regular basis) without thinking of a certain Toa a friend of mine (the foolish reason outlined above) is partial to. Here's a sketch that's pretty dinky and way too big:

Oh, and I drew another piece last night while attending a school play. Here's a spoiler for it:

Few things are quite so painful as being surrounded by people and feeling entirely alone. It's essential to hold the important things close to one's heart.

On that happy note, I bid thee fair well.

Hang in there (and hold out for that hero),
--Vurrunna

 

Right, I've run the numbers, done some tests, and it turns out life's still boring without a fox-man for me to draw. So here he is in all his brooding glory.







Though as you can see, ever since a certain someone blew up the Box, the inbox at the questions study has been runnin' dry. Apparently exploded inter-dimensional spaces don't get much mail. Weird, we'll have Dave from analytics look into it, just feel free to drop in any questions you might want a deranged grump to answer.

This was based on my original sketch of Laurence, back when I'd just gotten a tablet and could hardly draw on paper, let alone on a new-fangled computer-tablet-McBobber. I must say, getting back to Laurence is immensely satisfying.

Ah, back in the old days, when eyes sat on foreheads, chins were generic protrusions, and the body was a literal box. Oh, and I just realize that he has whiskers.

I want to burn it.

Happy Easter to you all,
--Vurrunna

P.S. This is a full on friggin' reboot and ain't nothin' gonna stop me short of physical ailment and loss of my slowly-dying computer. Or college. Whichever kills me first.

EDIT: Since this thread is just so messy, here's a link to a new, cleaner one: http://community.playstarbound.com/threads/ask-laurence-2-0.132209/