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Artwork (Traditional) / General Furry Art
Species Housecat
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Found this in a pile of papers and seeing as it had not been posted to my scraps, I chose to rectify the oversight.
This is
marmelmm's "Tali", of whom I did the pic "Skinny Dippin" as a sketchbook contribution during Anthrocon 2006.
As with all characters I haven't drawn before, the first step is a head shot, done to nail down my interpretation of the character. In this case, I think the headshot came out better than the complete sketch, although that may just be because this sketch occupied half of the page. Drawing large is almost always easier--but it makes fitting the rest of the body on the page a tad difficult :)
Had I occasion to draw Tali again, I would certainly use this facial model, despite it being almost four years old. Only difference would be in the eyes, since I've learned how to draw them more three-dimensional in the intervening years.
This is
marmelmm's "Tali", of whom I did the pic "Skinny Dippin" as a sketchbook contribution during Anthrocon 2006. As with all characters I haven't drawn before, the first step is a head shot, done to nail down my interpretation of the character. In this case, I think the headshot came out better than the complete sketch, although that may just be because this sketch occupied half of the page. Drawing large is almost always easier--but it makes fitting the rest of the body on the page a tad difficult :)
Had I occasion to draw Tali again, I would certainly use this facial model, despite it being almost four years old. Only difference would be in the eyes, since I've learned how to draw them more three-dimensional in the intervening years.
Category Artwork (Traditional) / General Furry Art
Species Housecat
Size 750 x 641px
File Size 55.6 kB
Upon seeing this, I actually leaned back in my chair, looked up at the ceiling and thought about the answer. Then I thought about it some more laying on the bed.
The easiest part is drawing that circle with the two crossed lines that defines the head :)
The hardest part is thinking up a pose and a setting.
For that last part I blame YERF.
Back in the '90s when the biggest gathering spots for the fandom were the alt.fan.furry newsgroup and the yerf private newsgroup (later replaced with a WWW-based forum), I spent a lot of time on the latter while working up the nerve to try and apply--since I had seen Yerf-ers having themselves a good time at Anthrocons long ago. I had actually made some application pics, but never actually made the attempt. Then the Yerf server's sole hard drive took a dirt nap and made the whole thing moot.
One thing I had heard some of the more vocal Yerfers complaining about was pics of characters "just standing there" against a blank backdrop. For being exposed to that, I have a hard time leaving a character doing nothing or suspended in whitespace. I always need to have them "doing something", and for that they often need a backdrop.
You can see this in the Mud Scout "portrait" pics--the character in their uniform is the focal point since they aren't yet doing what Mud Scouts do, so those pics didn't need fully shaded/highlighted color+backdrops. But I put them in anyway since they felt incomplete without the full treatment. The pics preceding them of my own characters are something of an exception, but even they appear to be "doing" something.
Granted, all that makes for a more attractive pic. But it sure inflates the time it takes to finish a pic. Like the one I'm working on as I type this--it was supposed to be a Christmas pic :D
The easiest part is drawing that circle with the two crossed lines that defines the head :)
The hardest part is thinking up a pose and a setting.
For that last part I blame YERF.
Back in the '90s when the biggest gathering spots for the fandom were the alt.fan.furry newsgroup and the yerf private newsgroup (later replaced with a WWW-based forum), I spent a lot of time on the latter while working up the nerve to try and apply--since I had seen Yerf-ers having themselves a good time at Anthrocons long ago. I had actually made some application pics, but never actually made the attempt. Then the Yerf server's sole hard drive took a dirt nap and made the whole thing moot.
One thing I had heard some of the more vocal Yerfers complaining about was pics of characters "just standing there" against a blank backdrop. For being exposed to that, I have a hard time leaving a character doing nothing or suspended in whitespace. I always need to have them "doing something", and for that they often need a backdrop.
You can see this in the Mud Scout "portrait" pics--the character in their uniform is the focal point since they aren't yet doing what Mud Scouts do, so those pics didn't need fully shaded/highlighted color+backdrops. But I put them in anyway since they felt incomplete without the full treatment. The pics preceding them of my own characters are something of an exception, but even they appear to be "doing" something.
Granted, all that makes for a more attractive pic. But it sure inflates the time it takes to finish a pic. Like the one I'm working on as I type this--it was supposed to be a Christmas pic :D
(nodnods) The blank backdrop thing is a bugaboo with me, too. For that reason, I always try to have SOMETHING, whether it be an airbrushed backdrop or an adapted photo. Even a complementary solid color or a couple of swirls suggesting a background are fine.
'Course, test pics and headshots don't really count. And this is a pretty headshot! Never saw it before.
'Course, test pics and headshots don't really count. And this is a pretty headshot! Never saw it before.
Mine were like that way back in the '80s. Then I bought this book "How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way", and it laid out how to do construction, foreshortening (which I really haven't done a lot of lately) and such, that my work never looked the same after reading it.
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