Drawing Henrietta
My word! I’ve yet to do any Gunslinger Girl fanart! This is an outrage, to be sure.
I still have a ways to go, but this lineart doesn’t look totally horrible. I just looks kind of horrible. I think my main weakness is that I lack the ability to project a 3D image onto the page with my mind, then draw lines around said image accordingly. To be able to draw with such confidence requires, a) confidence, of course and b) experience. I took a few drawing classes back in Freshman year, but in retrospect they weren’t nearly enough. I need more experience in life drawing–learning about how certain things should look in certain situations. So, what’s the best way? I suppose more classes would be the most prudent course of action, but say I don’t have that option available to me at the moment? Should I just start drawing from images of Asian U-15 swimsuit models until I get good? Men in suits? Both?
One thing that really hurts me is when it comes time to clean up my rough linework. I tend to be fairly happy with what I have sketched out, but when the sketch makes the transition to clean lineart by way of the lightbox, it always looks worse. Part of this is because I don’t have a steady hand, so when I trace over with my 0.3mm pencil, my lines are somewhat squiggly. It could also be because I lack a proper drawing table, so I can’t get the kind of support I need to keep a steady hand. Confidence once again plays into this–I find when I trace with more confidence, my strokes look better.
Another couple of things that really screw me up are fabric folds and shadows. It seems every single artist out there but me is good at fabric folds, so the fact that I’m really terrible at them kills a good amount of the soldiers in my Self Esteem army, but I suppose it’s just one of those things that takes practice. And more life drawing. Shadows are probably the easiest thing to be bad yet, yet they’ll still look decent if you have an okay handle over them. Once again, mastering the shadow, and where it falls simply requires more practice.
All this said, I’m a little bit happy between where I used to be and where I am now. This is a generous estimate, but in the next year or two I suspect I’ll get to the level I want to be at if I keep working.
I don’t think it looks too bad – you got the hands drawn pretty well (which even the animators for Il Teatrino couldn’t do as well as Madhouse!), which is an achievement in itself.
Personally I think it’s the eyes that need the most work – Henrietta’s are always very expressive and contribute to a lot to how her character is portrayed. You’ve never needed an excuse to gaze at swimsuit models all day before though, right? ;)
The eyes will be filled in when I colour it, don’t worry. I do think they need to be moved down a little, though.
it’s not bad, but as a gunslinger girl fanboy I am overly critical
You wrote that you lack the ability to project a 3D image onto the page with your mind, then draw lines around said image accordingly. Does it mean that you now start your sketching from flat shapes? Because it’s a basic, but really common mistake. When you draw characters without models, you need to construct 3d shapes on paper first, then use them as a basis for your linework. You know, hand = cylinder, head = modified ball, etc. Here’s an image that shows roughly what I mean, found on google: http://www.foxprints.com/tracy/misc/tutorial/dustin_1to4.jpg . Only picturing 3d shapes in your head isn’t wrong, but you need way, way more experience for that, and unless you’re really good, don’t even try.
Of course, there’s also the possibility that you already know that, and I only misunderstood, but considering how much does your art suck, I find that unlikely.
>>considering how much does your art suck
I like it when people are honest.
I do that, but I’m just really messy. When I mean project a 3D image, I mean being able to see right what you’re going to draw in your mind totally and completely, then drawing it. I was kind of being sarcastic, if you didn’t notice.
Well, being nice isn’t really one of my priorities.
I guess you just need more practice. I often find myself having a hard time too, trying to force my hands to do my brain’s bidding.
I think that one thing you could do, other then draw more, is read some tutorials by different artists. They are readily available, and some of them are quite high quality. Don’t try to follow them exactly; just read them and adapt things that work. Even if an artist creates work that is not to your taste, some things in his process can be inspiring.
Also, one particular resource that I would reccomend to any illustrators, are books about drawing by Andrew Loomis. They are quite old, but I have yet to find something more useful.
>>Well, being nice isn’t really one of my priorities.
My “I like when people are honest” wasn’t sarcasm. Differentiate, man.
It was just a comment, “I don’t care about being nice so I can be honest”, something like that, so don’t read anything into it.
Besides, if I thought you were being sarcastic there, I probably wouldn’t bother to give any more advice, I’m not THAT nice :P
Henrietta looks American or Canadian here. :v
Thicker legs than expected, IMO.