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In the wake of grief at the end of "Off the Beaten Path's" chapter 20 (which most of us are trying to say we saw coming, but I saw it coming and it still killed me), I've been trying to draw more and more ridiculous fanart of the characters to get myself to stop taking them so seriously.
Phase one of the plan! Do the most egregrious thing possible to the integrity of the series - make them human. This isn't too much of a stretch, seeing as the operatic setting of "Heretic" I set with humans (because there's nothing specifically animalistic about those characters, other than a few things about being in heat and in pedigree and body type - all of which can be transposed to humans immediately).
But Puck and Ransom just look completely silly transposed to humans like this. Without fur, they'd probably freeze with their clothing. I always pictured Ransom as a canadian fur trapper of legend (and the setting as British Columbia, though it's maddeningly vague, all we have is mountains and tribes to go by). He needs a flannel shirt, not a white thing. And probably a less stupid hat than the one I drew on him. And unless those tattoos are some sort of heat shield, Puck's gonna freeze pretty damn soon.
(Is it the most overused trope in the furry world to have a couple with a bi and gruff macho top and a playful mono bottom who's secretly anxious that he isn't good enough to hold his partner's attention? It still works.)
Pencil.
Phase one of the plan! Do the most egregrious thing possible to the integrity of the series - make them human. This isn't too much of a stretch, seeing as the operatic setting of "Heretic" I set with humans (because there's nothing specifically animalistic about those characters, other than a few things about being in heat and in pedigree and body type - all of which can be transposed to humans immediately).
But Puck and Ransom just look completely silly transposed to humans like this. Without fur, they'd probably freeze with their clothing. I always pictured Ransom as a canadian fur trapper of legend (and the setting as British Columbia, though it's maddeningly vague, all we have is mountains and tribes to go by). He needs a flannel shirt, not a white thing. And probably a less stupid hat than the one I drew on him. And unless those tattoos are some sort of heat shield, Puck's gonna freeze pretty damn soon.
(Is it the most overused trope in the furry world to have a couple with a bi and gruff macho top and a playful mono bottom who's secretly anxious that he isn't good enough to hold his partner's attention? It still works.)
Pencil.
Category Artwork (Traditional) / Fanart
Species Human
Size 1280 x 1033px
File Size 241.2 kB
You translated Ransom's appearance pretty well into human form, I would say! The weary gruffy expression in his eyes is well done. Although I would imagine Puck with fuller cheeks, him being the chubby guy he is, and also smaller. And yeah, humans wouldn't survive for long in the cloths Rukis gives her fur-covered characters.
Speaking of the dreaded chapter 20: I have a print of Grant on my wall I really like, but now it just makes me sad looking at it...
Speaking of the dreaded chapter 20: I have a print of Grant on my wall I really like, but now it just makes me sad looking at it...
Thanks for the kind words <3 If you look at their waistlines and the sloping terrain, you can see that Puck's about five inches Ransom's lesser... And look at that tit, he's pretty chubby already, it's just cartoon (racist) shorthand to draw Native Americans with famously propulsive cheekbones. (Among the other stereotypes are the hook nose and lack of body hair - the former is occasional, the latter's accurate.) I'm not yet talented enough to combine prominent cheekbones and full cheeks in the same character. I do regret it somewhat... I should be better than that. I don't know what real-world tribe he's analogous to, so I can't base it physiognomically on any real life native tribal facial structure. I just have to tone down the "Chief Wahoo" aspects and hope for the best. I'm glad I managed to tilt his eyes right, though...
Sorry your money was blown on sad feelings, man. (Which print?) The third one in this series, I intend to rectify the sad feeling I get while thinking about Grant. To be fair, there are worse thoughts to die with than your girlfriend's beautiful name (starts crying again)
Near, far, wherever you are, I believe my heart does go on...
(remembers my Blue Cheer poster that I took down the day the singer/bassist died)
Sorry your money was blown on sad feelings, man. (Which print?) The third one in this series, I intend to rectify the sad feeling I get while thinking about Grant. To be fair, there are worse thoughts to die with than your girlfriend's beautiful name (starts crying again)
Near, far, wherever you are, I believe my heart does go on...
(remembers my Blue Cheer poster that I took down the day the singer/bassist died)
I guessed that maybe it's not so much the lack of cheek, but rather the prominent cheek bone above it...although that is indeed a bit short-hand for native-american, as you said Not that I would know how to draw one, the only human I've ever drawn was Robert Downey Jr., everything else has been fuzz
I did the print myself, so there was not really money blown, only ink, paper, and laminate foil. And I think I will keep it there. Death doesn't take away from his beauty, I would say. What hurts probably more is that one piece I have on my wall as well, where Alongsaa is cuddling into his chest...talk about bitter-sweetness
I did the print myself, so there was not really money blown, only ink, paper, and laminate foil. And I think I will keep it there. Death doesn't take away from his beauty, I would say. What hurts probably more is that one piece I have on my wall as well, where Alongsaa is cuddling into his chest...talk about bitter-sweetness
Humans do help with your anthro art! Check out Betty Edwards' "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain," it'll help immensely. Get a sketchbook and sketch people in front of you - seeing someone in 3D in front of you helps immensely. It doesn't have to look good, but some knowledge of anatomy helps with the furry work.
Stereotypes are a cartoonist's best friend, terrible though they be... the goal is to make someone reognizable in two seconds.
Keep it there - you did all that work for it! I can imagine the room... My room's too poorly-lit to want to bother with posters, so the walls are prison-cell barren, I'm interested in how people put up posters and prints and such.
Well, she was still Shivah for all but the last six seconds of their relationship. I name people based on when they were in the story, myself... Memories of happier times!
You sound like a fin-de-siecle Vienna Symbolist talking about your consumptive girlfriend. ^^" The bitter sweet lilac, dying into a pulpy mess before it ever reaches its full peak, the wasted opium of youth, and when I saw him laid out like a queen, he was the happiest corpse I'd ever seen.
Life is a cabaret, old chum, come to the cabaret.
Stereotypes are a cartoonist's best friend, terrible though they be... the goal is to make someone reognizable in two seconds.
Keep it there - you did all that work for it! I can imagine the room... My room's too poorly-lit to want to bother with posters, so the walls are prison-cell barren, I'm interested in how people put up posters and prints and such.
Well, she was still Shivah for all but the last six seconds of their relationship. I name people based on when they were in the story, myself... Memories of happier times!
You sound like a fin-de-siecle Vienna Symbolist talking about your consumptive girlfriend. ^^" The bitter sweet lilac, dying into a pulpy mess before it ever reaches its full peak, the wasted opium of youth, and when I saw him laid out like a queen, he was the happiest corpse I'd ever seen.
Life is a cabaret, old chum, come to the cabaret.
I have found a video on YT with her that is 2 hours long, I will definitely check that out. So far I'm purely auto-didactic. I have purchased a book from JD Hillberry, but realized it isn't helping me much. He wants to draw things photo-realistically, and while that takes enormous skills, I want to draw furries. There is not much overlap there, I feel.
The walls of my rooms are pretty covered in furry-art, to the point it baffles myself. Guests, do they ever happen, have definitely a lot to look at and wonder about ;)
'Fin-de-siecle' made me read a Wiki-article, and it broadened my horizon successfully, I appreciate that. I can remember some of that feeling from, of course, Oscar Wilde, but without having more background knowledge about it, it appears to me like a backlash against the overly strong belief in progress that was so powerful at the beginning of industrialization, before the shadowy sides of it became more obvious.
‘Consumptive’…you mean, Victorian-novel-disease? XD I have to think now of ‘Portrait of a Lady’, where Isabelle Archer makes fun of that baron-guy, who threatens her he will die a slow, poetic death if she doesn’t want to marry him, that subtle way of emotional blackmail so popular in classic literature, and to which the female characters are all too often susceptible for. She is just like ‘oh, you will get over it’. And he does indeed :)
And that poem about the 'happiest corpse alive(;))' is surely amusing XD
The walls of my rooms are pretty covered in furry-art, to the point it baffles myself. Guests, do they ever happen, have definitely a lot to look at and wonder about ;)
'Fin-de-siecle' made me read a Wiki-article, and it broadened my horizon successfully, I appreciate that. I can remember some of that feeling from, of course, Oscar Wilde, but without having more background knowledge about it, it appears to me like a backlash against the overly strong belief in progress that was so powerful at the beginning of industrialization, before the shadowy sides of it became more obvious.
‘Consumptive’…you mean, Victorian-novel-disease? XD I have to think now of ‘Portrait of a Lady’, where Isabelle Archer makes fun of that baron-guy, who threatens her he will die a slow, poetic death if she doesn’t want to marry him, that subtle way of emotional blackmail so popular in classic literature, and to which the female characters are all too often susceptible for. She is just like ‘oh, you will get over it’. And he does indeed :)
And that poem about the 'happiest corpse alive(;))' is surely amusing XD
Her books are especially good - most "how to draw" books give you a list of poses and show you how to copy them, but she'll help you (especially with "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain") with showing you how to draw the picture you see in your head.
The other bit is those "how to draw animals" books, which we love to make fun of on here - the ones that show you, in order, how to draw dogs, cats, horses, and cows, exactly those. But there's plenty of room for photorealism! J.D. Hillberry didn't help me much, but you want to draw fluffy fur, right? No one said you have to draw humans... The best books on anatomy I can recommend are Willy Pogany's treatises on human anatomy and Gottfried Bammes' textbook on animal anatomy. Those helped so much with understanding what I'm drawing.
And if you want to get some life drawing under your belt, the universally accepted "best book on how to do anything ever written" is Kimon Nikolaides' "The Natural Way to Draw."
There's overlap between everything in art! Art doesn't follow the same laws of physics as the rest of life, and you'll only improve if you spread your effort out between multiple disciplines, because they cross-pollinate in your head.
I don't imagine there's a very good gay scene in teeny Austrian villages, I hope they don't judge. If you want to take the onus off your furry art (learned this from my cousin), some things to hang on there would be bits like maps, international flags, and posters of abstract art. My room right now is barren, and I still haven't changed the posters from my childhood room - Elvis Presley, Led Zeppelin, Pantera, a map of London, a copy of the U.S. Constitution my school was giving out, and a latin class certificate. All my furry art is languishing in my files after I scan it... I kinda want to see a picture at some point ^u^
I keep wondering how that evolved from Romanticism - Romanticism was a backlash against neoclassicalism (Lots of columns, lots of math, goals of "universal musical harmony," lots of white sculptures of people with perfect bodies, and decimal time and measurement (the latter survived, the former didn't)). But Aestheticism in England and Fin-de-Siecle on the continent was a backlash against all the progress and industrialization and social darwinism that was going on, you're right on the money. It scares me the way that, before things like William Morris and Klimt and Rimbaud, the bourgeoisie was so in love with factories and shit... When they bought old paintings, they thought them too colorful and sunlit, so they would glaze tobacco juice over the painting to dull all the colors to brown. That's dystopian novel shit right there.
I'm remembering this one Punch cartoon, with http://imgur.com/a/KWEBe the two English Aestheticists and a teapot - "It is quite consumnate, isn't it?" (Also in that album: proof that American stereotypes haven't changed in 158 years (look at the size of that meat), and an unrealistically polite Chicagoan.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patience_%28opera%29 http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Patience_%28comic_opera%29 I'm curious whether this operetta is funny to a non-native speaker of english, since the humor is mostly in how completely full of bullshit their speech is. "My eyes are open; I droop despairingly; I am soulfully intense; I am limp and I cling!" But it was Austria that perfected the operetta, perhaps I shouldn't be too worried.
Consumption? It's not just a novel disease, it was the word they had for Tuberculosis. It was at one point (I'm thinking of La Traviata) the "heroin chic" of illnesses. It made you melancholy and pale and coughing a lot, the 19th century loved it. Henry James, man... death was so poetic back then. Whenever I think of wasting away, I think of Rosetti's "Goblin Market..." The ever popular "lick mashed fruit off your sister" fetish.
One of the oldest traces I have of a family member, funnily enough, is a newspaper clipping from 1892 with the obituary of my great-great-grandmother - "Finn, Maureen, an Irishwoman in her fifties, was found by her family dead of a consumptive bout. Wake to be held someplace or other at x time." We were, after all, Irish.
I... ah, well, part of that poem was me, and the rhyme bit is from "Cabaret." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXRQV5z9GL8 "Come taste the wine, come hear the band / come blow your horn, start celebrating, right this way, your table's waiting!" Weimar Germany was a reaction against the second reich, and the third reich was a reaction against Weimar... So the world repeats.
The other bit is those "how to draw animals" books, which we love to make fun of on here - the ones that show you, in order, how to draw dogs, cats, horses, and cows, exactly those. But there's plenty of room for photorealism! J.D. Hillberry didn't help me much, but you want to draw fluffy fur, right? No one said you have to draw humans... The best books on anatomy I can recommend are Willy Pogany's treatises on human anatomy and Gottfried Bammes' textbook on animal anatomy. Those helped so much with understanding what I'm drawing.
And if you want to get some life drawing under your belt, the universally accepted "best book on how to do anything ever written" is Kimon Nikolaides' "The Natural Way to Draw."
There's overlap between everything in art! Art doesn't follow the same laws of physics as the rest of life, and you'll only improve if you spread your effort out between multiple disciplines, because they cross-pollinate in your head.
I don't imagine there's a very good gay scene in teeny Austrian villages, I hope they don't judge. If you want to take the onus off your furry art (learned this from my cousin), some things to hang on there would be bits like maps, international flags, and posters of abstract art. My room right now is barren, and I still haven't changed the posters from my childhood room - Elvis Presley, Led Zeppelin, Pantera, a map of London, a copy of the U.S. Constitution my school was giving out, and a latin class certificate. All my furry art is languishing in my files after I scan it... I kinda want to see a picture at some point ^u^
I keep wondering how that evolved from Romanticism - Romanticism was a backlash against neoclassicalism (Lots of columns, lots of math, goals of "universal musical harmony," lots of white sculptures of people with perfect bodies, and decimal time and measurement (the latter survived, the former didn't)). But Aestheticism in England and Fin-de-Siecle on the continent was a backlash against all the progress and industrialization and social darwinism that was going on, you're right on the money. It scares me the way that, before things like William Morris and Klimt and Rimbaud, the bourgeoisie was so in love with factories and shit... When they bought old paintings, they thought them too colorful and sunlit, so they would glaze tobacco juice over the painting to dull all the colors to brown. That's dystopian novel shit right there.
I'm remembering this one Punch cartoon, with http://imgur.com/a/KWEBe the two English Aestheticists and a teapot - "It is quite consumnate, isn't it?" (Also in that album: proof that American stereotypes haven't changed in 158 years (look at the size of that meat), and an unrealistically polite Chicagoan.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patience_%28opera%29 http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Patience_%28comic_opera%29 I'm curious whether this operetta is funny to a non-native speaker of english, since the humor is mostly in how completely full of bullshit their speech is. "My eyes are open; I droop despairingly; I am soulfully intense; I am limp and I cling!" But it was Austria that perfected the operetta, perhaps I shouldn't be too worried.
Consumption? It's not just a novel disease, it was the word they had for Tuberculosis. It was at one point (I'm thinking of La Traviata) the "heroin chic" of illnesses. It made you melancholy and pale and coughing a lot, the 19th century loved it. Henry James, man... death was so poetic back then. Whenever I think of wasting away, I think of Rosetti's "Goblin Market..." The ever popular "lick mashed fruit off your sister" fetish.
One of the oldest traces I have of a family member, funnily enough, is a newspaper clipping from 1892 with the obituary of my great-great-grandmother - "Finn, Maureen, an Irishwoman in her fifties, was found by her family dead of a consumptive bout. Wake to be held someplace or other at x time." We were, after all, Irish.
I... ah, well, part of that poem was me, and the rhyme bit is from "Cabaret." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXRQV5z9GL8 "Come taste the wine, come hear the band / come blow your horn, start celebrating, right this way, your table's waiting!" Weimar Germany was a reaction against the second reich, and the third reich was a reaction against Weimar... So the world repeats.
I'm watching currently that video which seemed to be from the VHS about "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain". That lady is really sweet, and I love how slow and careful she is talking. And the practices she explains are very interesting, like drawing upside down, or without looking at the paper.
So far she speaks mostly about 'quieting the vocal mind', which seems to get into the way of drawing what one is seeing, instead of letting the left brain side process the things in front of one. Also the thing about the negative space is interesting; it seems like something I did from the beginning unintentionally. It seemed to me the easiest way to draw things like they're holes in the wall behind them.
What I did a lot in the beginning was to re-draw works of artists like Blotch and Rukis, and in the process learning a lot about anatomy, perspective, and what-not. Reading a book about art, like those you mentioned, is not really my way, I believe. I'm more a learning by doing guy, I found out. Surely advice from an expert can save a lot of experimenting, but, truth be told, I want to spend my time drawing, not learning from a book
I would welcome it if you could take a look at my gallery, and maybe even comment on one or two pics there. Having a trained eye like yours on my drawings might point out things I'm not seeing, being a beginner and also amateur in the original sense of the word. Not sure where I'm standing with my progress, having started to draw, like, two months ago, but I hope I'm moving into the right direction.
I'm aware that consumption is tuberculosis, as poetic as it is often described in literature Reminds me of the last sentences of 'November': 'Then he died from his grief. That might sound ridiculous to those who suffered a lot, but for the sake of the magic of novels one has to accept that (translated from memory, and way to break the fourth wall...)' Well, Flaubert was definitely not effected from consumption...speaking of, once I saw a performance of La Traviata where the heroine was rather obese, which made her stage-death worthy of a lot of suspension of disbelief XD
So far she speaks mostly about 'quieting the vocal mind', which seems to get into the way of drawing what one is seeing, instead of letting the left brain side process the things in front of one. Also the thing about the negative space is interesting; it seems like something I did from the beginning unintentionally. It seemed to me the easiest way to draw things like they're holes in the wall behind them.
What I did a lot in the beginning was to re-draw works of artists like Blotch and Rukis, and in the process learning a lot about anatomy, perspective, and what-not. Reading a book about art, like those you mentioned, is not really my way, I believe. I'm more a learning by doing guy, I found out. Surely advice from an expert can save a lot of experimenting, but, truth be told, I want to spend my time drawing, not learning from a book
I would welcome it if you could take a look at my gallery, and maybe even comment on one or two pics there. Having a trained eye like yours on my drawings might point out things I'm not seeing, being a beginner and also amateur in the original sense of the word. Not sure where I'm standing with my progress, having started to draw, like, two months ago, but I hope I'm moving into the right direction.
I'm aware that consumption is tuberculosis, as poetic as it is often described in literature Reminds me of the last sentences of 'November': 'Then he died from his grief. That might sound ridiculous to those who suffered a lot, but for the sake of the magic of novels one has to accept that (translated from memory, and way to break the fourth wall...)' Well, Flaubert was definitely not effected from consumption...speaking of, once I saw a performance of La Traviata where the heroine was rather obese, which made her stage-death worthy of a lot of suspension of disbelief XD
I'm assembling a list of drawing exercises like hers that I've heard (Draw with your non-dominant hand, draw the edges of the planes instead of the edges of the figure, try holding your pencil with your hand off the paper or between your middle and index finger, or "Blind Texture" where you try to draw like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1IY6plQKGI - draw the textures without worrying about where they are on the figure, just move your pen how the texture dictates).
Yeah, the hole in the wall thing is accurate! ^u^ One of my first art teachers punched it into my brain - "You're drawing what you think you see, not what you see, there's a difference. Go back and count the stripes on his shirt."
Okay! I'm a book learner, but I dig why would want to learn about it through redrawing... it's how people used to learn, nothing wrong with that! ^u^
I've already discovered and watched it between the time I started writing this reply and the time it got to here - You have an excellent outsider-art-obsessiveness with your individual furs.
The challenges I'd recommend would be trying to do a sketchy background for some of the pics - backgrounds teach you how to make dominant and subordinant elements in your compositions. Like, using the composition and the details to put the viewer's eye where you want. You don't have to use it on all the pictures, but it's a vital skill. Make a part of the drawing that you don't LOOK at, but that hypnotizes you out of the corner of your eye. They also help place your characters well in an environment, which is a great skill to have when your ideas demand it. Also, practice some hand exercises, they'll help with drawing curves. Most of your stuff has a very solid but eventually-it-gets-repetitive set of classical circular curves; http://www.furaffinity.net/view/13402857/ This one makes me think of a russian constructivist poster with the workers rushing off to increase production, everything's equal. It's something to be aware of.
Love your wolf-fox couple, but anatomically the wolf's muzzle is a bit oversized - I'll chalk that up to your style. They don't have a lot of space at the back of their head for a brain cavity, and they're certainly fluffy, but there's little visible contrast between stiff fur and luxuriously soft fur. It's a problem I have, too, but if you can manage that, it'll look anatomically so much more inviting <3 Maybe some fur on their necks would help. Fur you want to run your fingers through.
You're moving in the right direction, sure! There's no shame in researching advice for an angle. You already have huge potential, your anatomy shows a prescient solidity. Your grasp of facial emotions... seriously! I love this new stuff you're moving towards! they really look like they're in love. It's admirable.
I draw things like http://www.furaffinity.net/view/13406194/ sometimes so I don't die of grief... it's the curse of the artist. It doesn't feel ridiculous at all, everyone's had grief where they feel like they're dying. Ah, Flaubert...
BTW, I just read an AskReddit about which was their least favorite book in school... everybody had some problem or other with a lot of the famous books (Nobody likes the Aeneid, too old-timey to make sense in some places) - but absolutely everyone HATED Ethan Frome. Hated with a passion. "So whiny and mopey. At least it's short."
Oh, that's been the joke ever since the damn opera came out! It ruined Maria Callas' singing voice for a few years, the weight she lost to avoid that issue... Any artform where Luciano Pavarotti is the height of sexy clearly shouldn't care about size...
The premiere of Madama Butterfly, a rogue gust of wind blew Butterfly's kimono out during "Un Bel Di." "She's pregnant!" someone shouted from the house, only to be topped - "It's Toscanini's!"
Yeah, the hole in the wall thing is accurate! ^u^ One of my first art teachers punched it into my brain - "You're drawing what you think you see, not what you see, there's a difference. Go back and count the stripes on his shirt."
Okay! I'm a book learner, but I dig why would want to learn about it through redrawing... it's how people used to learn, nothing wrong with that! ^u^
I've already discovered and watched it between the time I started writing this reply and the time it got to here - You have an excellent outsider-art-obsessiveness with your individual furs.
The challenges I'd recommend would be trying to do a sketchy background for some of the pics - backgrounds teach you how to make dominant and subordinant elements in your compositions. Like, using the composition and the details to put the viewer's eye where you want. You don't have to use it on all the pictures, but it's a vital skill. Make a part of the drawing that you don't LOOK at, but that hypnotizes you out of the corner of your eye. They also help place your characters well in an environment, which is a great skill to have when your ideas demand it. Also, practice some hand exercises, they'll help with drawing curves. Most of your stuff has a very solid but eventually-it-gets-repetitive set of classical circular curves; http://www.furaffinity.net/view/13402857/ This one makes me think of a russian constructivist poster with the workers rushing off to increase production, everything's equal. It's something to be aware of.
Love your wolf-fox couple, but anatomically the wolf's muzzle is a bit oversized - I'll chalk that up to your style. They don't have a lot of space at the back of their head for a brain cavity, and they're certainly fluffy, but there's little visible contrast between stiff fur and luxuriously soft fur. It's a problem I have, too, but if you can manage that, it'll look anatomically so much more inviting <3 Maybe some fur on their necks would help. Fur you want to run your fingers through.
You're moving in the right direction, sure! There's no shame in researching advice for an angle. You already have huge potential, your anatomy shows a prescient solidity. Your grasp of facial emotions... seriously! I love this new stuff you're moving towards! they really look like they're in love. It's admirable.
I draw things like http://www.furaffinity.net/view/13406194/ sometimes so I don't die of grief... it's the curse of the artist. It doesn't feel ridiculous at all, everyone's had grief where they feel like they're dying. Ah, Flaubert...
BTW, I just read an AskReddit about which was their least favorite book in school... everybody had some problem or other with a lot of the famous books (Nobody likes the Aeneid, too old-timey to make sense in some places) - but absolutely everyone HATED Ethan Frome. Hated with a passion. "So whiny and mopey. At least it's short."
Oh, that's been the joke ever since the damn opera came out! It ruined Maria Callas' singing voice for a few years, the weight she lost to avoid that issue... Any artform where Luciano Pavarotti is the height of sexy clearly shouldn't care about size...
The premiere of Madama Butterfly, a rogue gust of wind blew Butterfly's kimono out during "Un Bel Di." "She's pregnant!" someone shouted from the house, only to be topped - "It's Toscanini's!"
Thanks for your insight on my drawings, it's very appreciated!
I love your comparison between soviet-realism and my pic, it's so true XD Part of it, besides in-experience, is that I'm too afraid to fuck something up, and therefore go for repetitive patterns. I once heard from an artist one should not worry too much about it being 'perfect', but rather dare and try again. Hits close to home for me.
You're also right about the head sizes. I feel I have too much emphasis on the muzzle, which in return shrinks the rest of the head. Style-choice, or opportunity for improvement...good question. There is also the question how to do fluffy fur that looks less 'mechanical' as mine. I looked at how Rukis does it in her traditional art, like in the 'war paint' piece, but I couldn't deduct it for the life of me how she manages it. She IS amazing, that gets clearer and clearer to me since I draw myself...
I'm delighted you could find something positive too in my art! I'm sure you know the feeling, after having looked at a piece or hours, scanning it for weaknesses, it doesn't look appealing to me anymore...some outside perspective can be so helpful. I will definitely incorporate your advice in my next piece!
Flaubert is great, and also a good example of 'how to kill your characters', just think of Emma Bovary
I love your comparison between soviet-realism and my pic, it's so true XD Part of it, besides in-experience, is that I'm too afraid to fuck something up, and therefore go for repetitive patterns. I once heard from an artist one should not worry too much about it being 'perfect', but rather dare and try again. Hits close to home for me.
You're also right about the head sizes. I feel I have too much emphasis on the muzzle, which in return shrinks the rest of the head. Style-choice, or opportunity for improvement...good question. There is also the question how to do fluffy fur that looks less 'mechanical' as mine. I looked at how Rukis does it in her traditional art, like in the 'war paint' piece, but I couldn't deduct it for the life of me how she manages it. She IS amazing, that gets clearer and clearer to me since I draw myself...
I'm delighted you could find something positive too in my art! I'm sure you know the feeling, after having looked at a piece or hours, scanning it for weaknesses, it doesn't look appealing to me anymore...some outside perspective can be so helpful. I will definitely incorporate your advice in my next piece!
Flaubert is great, and also a good example of 'how to kill your characters', just think of Emma Bovary
It's easier to tell if you got a "perfect circle" than a "perfect pose..." the former exists and the latter doesn't. It's very freeing...
There's a bit of folk art, a bit of outsider art, a bit of socialist realism (especially Chinese)...
I'll let you in on a little secret - nothing ever looks as good as it does in your head. You can only get so close. This one was meant to be much faster and more Bob Peak, but I threw away three versions and settled on one of the sketches. http://www.furaffinity.net/view/12556570/ This this was meant to be a style parody, but I drowned it in detail and it's too fuzzy to be dynamic. http://www.furaffinity.net/view/12255834/ This stuff happens rather often.
Make it a chance for improvement. You don't want to be locked into a certain style of drawing an animal at this stage in the game. Wolves' muzzles are actually rather medium in size, just very thick and squared off (which makes them look bigger), and surrounded by large swathes of thick, fluffy fur on the neck and back of head (that makes the muzzle look heavy). This although it's not that dominant on the head. When you see an animal, ask yourself, what part of the animal is giving me that impression? Male lions look cowardly not because of the Wizard of Oz, in fact, the Wizard of Oz is there because the lion already looks cowardly. He sits perched, his face is seperated from his body by the mane, his lips droop in a frown, and his eyes are wide open, scanning for potential threats. When he narrows his eyes, that disappears, and he looks threatening - now the frown is disapproving and his head juts forward from his mane. Humans look for reflections of the human in the animal, so that's what you see, and so that's what you draw.
"War Paint?" Ooh, yeah, that's good stuff. She's drawing lines that don't represent the direction the fur moves in (which may be why yours look mechanical?), she's drawing lines that represent the shadows the fur is casting on the other strands of fur. That's advanced shit. But it might be interesting to see you stab at that.
The greatest gift an artist can have is enough good taste to hate his work. It keeps it fresh. (My work improved so much when I learned you can tell the weaknesses in your art and composition, not by staring at it for an hour before changing something, but by holding it up to a mirror. It jolts your brain into seeing the composition afresh, and you can immediately tell what you need to fix!!)
I always recommend to people (though my own preferences bias me) - study Japanese and Chinese brush art, learn how to be fluid with your hand. One can make five billion times more styles of lines than before.
Oh, that was an insane amount of character death you managed!
There's a bit of folk art, a bit of outsider art, a bit of socialist realism (especially Chinese)...
I'll let you in on a little secret - nothing ever looks as good as it does in your head. You can only get so close. This one was meant to be much faster and more Bob Peak, but I threw away three versions and settled on one of the sketches. http://www.furaffinity.net/view/12556570/ This this was meant to be a style parody, but I drowned it in detail and it's too fuzzy to be dynamic. http://www.furaffinity.net/view/12255834/ This stuff happens rather often.
Make it a chance for improvement. You don't want to be locked into a certain style of drawing an animal at this stage in the game. Wolves' muzzles are actually rather medium in size, just very thick and squared off (which makes them look bigger), and surrounded by large swathes of thick, fluffy fur on the neck and back of head (that makes the muzzle look heavy). This although it's not that dominant on the head. When you see an animal, ask yourself, what part of the animal is giving me that impression? Male lions look cowardly not because of the Wizard of Oz, in fact, the Wizard of Oz is there because the lion already looks cowardly. He sits perched, his face is seperated from his body by the mane, his lips droop in a frown, and his eyes are wide open, scanning for potential threats. When he narrows his eyes, that disappears, and he looks threatening - now the frown is disapproving and his head juts forward from his mane. Humans look for reflections of the human in the animal, so that's what you see, and so that's what you draw.
"War Paint?" Ooh, yeah, that's good stuff. She's drawing lines that don't represent the direction the fur moves in (which may be why yours look mechanical?), she's drawing lines that represent the shadows the fur is casting on the other strands of fur. That's advanced shit. But it might be interesting to see you stab at that.
The greatest gift an artist can have is enough good taste to hate his work. It keeps it fresh. (My work improved so much when I learned you can tell the weaknesses in your art and composition, not by staring at it for an hour before changing something, but by holding it up to a mirror. It jolts your brain into seeing the composition afresh, and you can immediately tell what you need to fix!!)
I always recommend to people (though my own preferences bias me) - study Japanese and Chinese brush art, learn how to be fluid with your hand. One can make five billion times more styles of lines than before.
Oh, that was an insane amount of character death you managed!
In my stage of development it comes down to practice a lot, especially setting up poses. I already used the mirror trick- helped me notice a necessary change in a sketch I deemed finished, so thanks for the advice!
I'm doing another realistic animal portrait at the moment, and one thing I realized is that I was afraid to make longer strokes. Probably again the fear of fucking up something, which is why I inched (or rather millimeter-ed) my way usually through my drawings. I'm curious how this will improve, or at least change my style. One important thing are strands- fur, or hair in general, does grow exactly next to each other, but rarely lies that way on the surface. Without strands, hair or fur looks like on a plushie toy. Took me long enough to realize that
And that's why I find 'Bouvard and Pecuchet' so ironic; not only because it was written by Flaubert to show the irony of the we-know-everything stance of the ninteenth century, but also because, this time, not the characters died- the author did. That showed him XD (or not...)
I'm doing another realistic animal portrait at the moment, and one thing I realized is that I was afraid to make longer strokes. Probably again the fear of fucking up something, which is why I inched (or rather millimeter-ed) my way usually through my drawings. I'm curious how this will improve, or at least change my style. One important thing are strands- fur, or hair in general, does grow exactly next to each other, but rarely lies that way on the surface. Without strands, hair or fur looks like on a plushie toy. Took me long enough to realize that
And that's why I find 'Bouvard and Pecuchet' so ironic; not only because it was written by Flaubert to show the irony of the we-know-everything stance of the ninteenth century, but also because, this time, not the characters died- the author did. That showed him XD (or not...)
I thought that was your style talking, but YES. You hit the nail right on the head. As someone who draws with really REALLY long strokes, http://www.furaffinity.net/view/12970537/ (that rippling tree line in the background I drew with one smooth line each), I'll tell you it's much better to go for a long stroke and not worry. One thing that helps is to imagine where the line is on the paper, so it feels like tracing rather than creating. Takes the pressure off.
Overlap does help! You're... I love how you can tell exactly where you need improvement, I envy that! But you're right, it doesn't lie on the surface.
Flaubart really fucking hated the sciences, didn't he? Though if I lived in his time, surrounded by pompous twats in state academies bragging about how now they've completely solved the planet, I'd resent it too... probably not to the point of making a scientist named Lucifer, like in "Temptations," but it was the perfect word!
There's a poem I'm trying to remember, something like "the Iris now has seven names and not one of them has a color or a smell..."
Good point on the irony factor!
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/service/pnp/c.....0/3b48918r.jpg You might find this funny, this is America in 1936. Looks even more like a Nazi poster than an actual Nazi poster... XD
Overlap does help! You're... I love how you can tell exactly where you need improvement, I envy that! But you're right, it doesn't lie on the surface.
Flaubart really fucking hated the sciences, didn't he? Though if I lived in his time, surrounded by pompous twats in state academies bragging about how now they've completely solved the planet, I'd resent it too... probably not to the point of making a scientist named Lucifer, like in "Temptations," but it was the perfect word!
There's a poem I'm trying to remember, something like "the Iris now has seven names and not one of them has a color or a smell..."
Good point on the irony factor!
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/service/pnp/c.....0/3b48918r.jpg You might find this funny, this is America in 1936. Looks even more like a Nazi poster than an actual Nazi poster... XD
I feel your style is in many ways the opposite of mine, and that I can learn from it. And that's a good tip of tracing an imaginary line, will use that!
I'm not sure if Flaubert did hate the sciences (he surely indulged himself into them deeply enough for 'Bouvard and Pecuchet', as he basically recited the level of current knowledge back then), but he definitely hated the Bourgeoisie that looked down on people like him. The character of Emma's husband is supposed to have largely his background, and probably also the passive-aggressive way he dealt with the preconceived notions he met in his days, I can imagine.
And that poster is just...wow All complete with the viking font. Most disturbingly, 'work promotes confidence', which can be translated 'Arbeit fördert Selbstvertrauen', or, shorter and punchier... 'Arbeit macht frei'. That is scary, and says something about that time
I'm not sure if Flaubert did hate the sciences (he surely indulged himself into them deeply enough for 'Bouvard and Pecuchet', as he basically recited the level of current knowledge back then), but he definitely hated the Bourgeoisie that looked down on people like him. The character of Emma's husband is supposed to have largely his background, and probably also the passive-aggressive way he dealt with the preconceived notions he met in his days, I can imagine.
And that poster is just...wow All complete with the viking font. Most disturbingly, 'work promotes confidence', which can be translated 'Arbeit fördert Selbstvertrauen', or, shorter and punchier... 'Arbeit macht frei'. That is scary, and says something about that time
I don't know who I can have picked it up from... Munsch? Tolouse-Lautrec? Sumi-e?
One of the biggest fears of long lines is that you'll fuck up where the line goes - Sumi-e teaches you to spend a ratio of 20 minutes preparing your materials, nine minutes looking at the paper seeing where you want the lines to go, and one minute making the lines. It's so far removed from our western thought process of "WORKS of art," it's not impressed by realism or flashy detail.
Like the story of the boy gardener who inspired the ancient Korean king (in disguise) to invent Hangeul - he points to a bunch of lotus flowers in the pool, and says "If we Koreans had our own writing system (the Chinese characters they used were, at the time, only feasible for the aristocracy to study), they should be like the blossoms. Few in number, simple and beautiful." Every font I try to design I try to remember those.
But in far eastern art, in calligraphy and painting alike: the thought processes, the philosophy, the pregnant white space of the paper, the negative areas of the composition being the powerful ones; the seamless integration of abstract and representational art, poetry and prose, writing and art; the implication of detail with simplicity; the attitude of counterpointing life ("Where life is frantic, art must be placid; where life is boring, art must be captivating") - those ideas ring more powerfully to me than the western goals of accuracy and impact, or the southeast asian goals of baroqueness and meditation on shimmeringly complicated forms, or the near eastern goals of wit and abstract design (though I have a soft spot for those).
Why would you make something searingly bright colors when you can take this dull color, put it next to this medium color, set it against black, and make the colors sing instead of scream? You have to think a lot, you have to imagine your art before you draw it, you have to trace the imaginary line. <3
Flaubert loved knowing things, but hated the people who acted like they knew everything. So do I, I get where he's coming from. Docteur Bovary, I've always wondered - is that Flaubert purging all the bourgeois elements out of his system? The stuffy businessman who has no romance in his soul... he's giving shape to everything he hates about himself.
It's no coincidence that he followed "Bovary" with "Salammbo," a book it took me years to even find an English version of, which is the antithesis of Bovary's worldview. A contemporary stuffy schlub with no time for his wife's fantasy vs. cursed veils and princesses in mythical Carthage? Perhaps Flaubert had to get it all out of his system to write the latter!
The ideas that made Nazis weren't unique to Germany at the time - people of that era liked machinery, liked strength, liked the idea of trying to "fix" the world. [sub]
http://www.condenaststore.com/-sp/T....._i8643049_.htm Here's another cartoon of the era that always makes me stop and think. The New Yorker magazine, cartoon by Gardner Rea... it's very contemporary! A pair of rich guys, I'm guessing this is 1933 or so, height of the depression? They've set up a Broadway Revue or Follies or whatever - a very 1920s-30s thing over here, they had chorus girls and lots of mass choreography - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJOjTNuuEVw and things like it.
With the aim to "promote prosperity," they want the economy to start moving again, so there's all this "America is awesome" confidence to the whole shebang - the chorus girls on the Uncle Sam Bald Eagle, Capitol Hill in the background, thunder and fireworks... This is what "uber-patriotism" looked like in 1933, the symbols have changed since then (lots more flags and airplanes, less history).
Two things that completely slay me - the banner in the lower right reading "Eugenics." Eugenics, as part of the plan to fix the world, just there on the stage with no shame. It's in the same category as all the industries like "Steel" and "shipping," and I always wonder what the hell she's holding. Probably a swastika or something?
They would have put that onstage - and (this is especially thought-provoking, giving New York City's historical Jewish population (the anti-semitism was huge back then, but attitudes were more liberal "east of the Hudson")) the little Jewish caricature hopping around the bottom - not mocked, but a showman, an echo of the giant Eagle, the small businessman hard hit by the depression. So in the same image, there's a Nazi parallel and a concept really far removed from Nazism - an individual, Jewish, scrappy and down-to-earth.
http://animationresources.org/?p=2016 This one shows a German and a French recruitment poster from WWI - which one would make you join up, the abstract ideal muscular German youth with an arrow, or the French guy who could well be your best friend? It's always been a very German problem, the culture likes efficiency and idealism, abstract concepts, simple and unadorned, sometimes to their expense. Everybody online jokes about the word "antibabypillen" as the perfect summary of that. (The other problem is Germany's style of patriotism, and how it always seems to come at everyone else's expense - they're not just great, they're the best! Didn't Gutenberg dedicate his bible to the country that "God has blessed above all others" in the arts and sciences? It's definitely in the top three worst countries with this, with probably the others being Japan and America...)
As a neighbor, you might be able to tell me if I'm talking out of my ass here XD[sub]
The translation makes it even more unsettling. How would you translate "Selbstglaublichkeit?" I have a suspicion that the friend who used it was bullshitting me... it sounds like a terrible children's movie message... XD
One of the biggest fears of long lines is that you'll fuck up where the line goes - Sumi-e teaches you to spend a ratio of 20 minutes preparing your materials, nine minutes looking at the paper seeing where you want the lines to go, and one minute making the lines. It's so far removed from our western thought process of "WORKS of art," it's not impressed by realism or flashy detail.
Like the story of the boy gardener who inspired the ancient Korean king (in disguise) to invent Hangeul - he points to a bunch of lotus flowers in the pool, and says "If we Koreans had our own writing system (the Chinese characters they used were, at the time, only feasible for the aristocracy to study), they should be like the blossoms. Few in number, simple and beautiful." Every font I try to design I try to remember those.
But in far eastern art, in calligraphy and painting alike: the thought processes, the philosophy, the pregnant white space of the paper, the negative areas of the composition being the powerful ones; the seamless integration of abstract and representational art, poetry and prose, writing and art; the implication of detail with simplicity; the attitude of counterpointing life ("Where life is frantic, art must be placid; where life is boring, art must be captivating") - those ideas ring more powerfully to me than the western goals of accuracy and impact, or the southeast asian goals of baroqueness and meditation on shimmeringly complicated forms, or the near eastern goals of wit and abstract design (though I have a soft spot for those).
Why would you make something searingly bright colors when you can take this dull color, put it next to this medium color, set it against black, and make the colors sing instead of scream? You have to think a lot, you have to imagine your art before you draw it, you have to trace the imaginary line. <3
Flaubert loved knowing things, but hated the people who acted like they knew everything. So do I, I get where he's coming from. Docteur Bovary, I've always wondered - is that Flaubert purging all the bourgeois elements out of his system? The stuffy businessman who has no romance in his soul... he's giving shape to everything he hates about himself.
It's no coincidence that he followed "Bovary" with "Salammbo," a book it took me years to even find an English version of, which is the antithesis of Bovary's worldview. A contemporary stuffy schlub with no time for his wife's fantasy vs. cursed veils and princesses in mythical Carthage? Perhaps Flaubert had to get it all out of his system to write the latter!
The ideas that made Nazis weren't unique to Germany at the time - people of that era liked machinery, liked strength, liked the idea of trying to "fix" the world. [sub]
http://www.condenaststore.com/-sp/T....._i8643049_.htm Here's another cartoon of the era that always makes me stop and think. The New Yorker magazine, cartoon by Gardner Rea... it's very contemporary! A pair of rich guys, I'm guessing this is 1933 or so, height of the depression? They've set up a Broadway Revue or Follies or whatever - a very 1920s-30s thing over here, they had chorus girls and lots of mass choreography - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJOjTNuuEVw and things like it.
With the aim to "promote prosperity," they want the economy to start moving again, so there's all this "America is awesome" confidence to the whole shebang - the chorus girls on the Uncle Sam Bald Eagle, Capitol Hill in the background, thunder and fireworks... This is what "uber-patriotism" looked like in 1933, the symbols have changed since then (lots more flags and airplanes, less history).
Two things that completely slay me - the banner in the lower right reading "Eugenics." Eugenics, as part of the plan to fix the world, just there on the stage with no shame. It's in the same category as all the industries like "Steel" and "shipping," and I always wonder what the hell she's holding. Probably a swastika or something?
They would have put that onstage - and (this is especially thought-provoking, giving New York City's historical Jewish population (the anti-semitism was huge back then, but attitudes were more liberal "east of the Hudson")) the little Jewish caricature hopping around the bottom - not mocked, but a showman, an echo of the giant Eagle, the small businessman hard hit by the depression. So in the same image, there's a Nazi parallel and a concept really far removed from Nazism - an individual, Jewish, scrappy and down-to-earth.
http://animationresources.org/?p=2016 This one shows a German and a French recruitment poster from WWI - which one would make you join up, the abstract ideal muscular German youth with an arrow, or the French guy who could well be your best friend? It's always been a very German problem, the culture likes efficiency and idealism, abstract concepts, simple and unadorned, sometimes to their expense. Everybody online jokes about the word "antibabypillen" as the perfect summary of that. (The other problem is Germany's style of patriotism, and how it always seems to come at everyone else's expense - they're not just great, they're the best! Didn't Gutenberg dedicate his bible to the country that "God has blessed above all others" in the arts and sciences? It's definitely in the top three worst countries with this, with probably the others being Japan and America...)
As a neighbor, you might be able to tell me if I'm talking out of my ass here XD[sub]
The translation makes it even more unsettling. How would you translate "Selbstglaublichkeit?" I have a suspicion that the friend who used it was bullshitting me... it sounds like a terrible children's movie message... XD
I read Salammbo right after Bovary, and what a culture shock it was. It's like 'quiet days of decay' versus 'Conan goes on a rampage'. It really seems that he had to get something out of his system, had to set a counterpoint. He did say at some point that he writes 'with iron weights on his knuckles', and that in his opinion, every writer should challenge him or herself that way...maybe he had enough of that at some point.
All that visual language of the 30s is indeed just as impressive as it is disturbing to today's, or at least my, sensibilities. The credit roll (and for parts the entire movie) of the Captain America: The First Avenger movie goes bonkers with that. After those almost ten minutes I felt somewhat overstuffed with a naivety that has died out nowadays (or so I hope, at least).
What can I say as a neighbor, hm...to me, Germans have a certain straight-forwardness and no-nonsense attitude to them that is slightly disturbing for me. That comparison in recruitment posters fits well when it comes to temperaments. We Austrians lack that for the most part, in general, exceptions aside, we would definitely side with the French guy and ask the German guy to pull the stick out of his bum XD When they do something, they aren't satisfied with second place, their achievements in industry are a good example for that. 'Second place is first loser', that saying could be from them (maybe it is). Their cars reflect that pretty good. I remember when visiting Tony in LA noticing the two Mercedes' in front of the house on the other side of the road. He said 'he's a lawyer, he has to show up in cars like that'.
And the word 'Selbstglaublichkeit' does not make much sense; 'Selbstvertrauen' is the term meant, I imagine?
All that visual language of the 30s is indeed just as impressive as it is disturbing to today's, or at least my, sensibilities. The credit roll (and for parts the entire movie) of the Captain America: The First Avenger movie goes bonkers with that. After those almost ten minutes I felt somewhat overstuffed with a naivety that has died out nowadays (or so I hope, at least).
What can I say as a neighbor, hm...to me, Germans have a certain straight-forwardness and no-nonsense attitude to them that is slightly disturbing for me. That comparison in recruitment posters fits well when it comes to temperaments. We Austrians lack that for the most part, in general, exceptions aside, we would definitely side with the French guy and ask the German guy to pull the stick out of his bum XD When they do something, they aren't satisfied with second place, their achievements in industry are a good example for that. 'Second place is first loser', that saying could be from them (maybe it is). Their cars reflect that pretty good. I remember when visiting Tony in LA noticing the two Mercedes' in front of the house on the other side of the road. He said 'he's a lawyer, he has to show up in cars like that'.
And the word 'Selbstglaublichkeit' does not make much sense; 'Selbstvertrauen' is the term meant, I imagine?
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