Thread: Jade's Mega Art Restart

That is a really good pic and I know what you mean about the lines. Your oc also reminds me of that old show called gargoyles which is cool.

Raiah Doodles. More to come.

Its cool how her character really stands out in those drawings. I didn't even know her legs and arm could come off like that but it makes sense if she wants to get comfortable.I also thought that the little girl was someone else till I remembered red heads start out blond.

Its cool how her character really stands out in those drawings. I didn't even know her legs and arm could come off like that but it makes sense if she wants to get comfortable.I also thought that the little girl was someone else till I remembered red heads start out blond.

Well actually the story behind that was I wanted to show what happens when the robot arms need to be taken off to be adjusted and maintained every few months. So she gets stuck on the couch being a "One Armed Potato" (what she calls it) for a day, watching TV and eating snacks. Later, she starts maintaining and modifying them herself and keeps multiple sets so she's never stuck like that.

Also she dyes her hair red, it's naturally blonde.

Oh. Thanks for clearing that up. Btw how did you get good at drawing tech/cyber stuff like that? Did anything specific inspire your designs?

Btw how did you get good at drawing tech/cyber stuff like that? Did anything specific inspire your designs?

Honestly I don't think this second round came out that good... I kinda rushed it out, being busy with exams and all. But these were more about getting my ideas out onto the page than creating the most miraculous work of art I could possibly create.

But for the robot arm, it kind of developed organically. In the first round of sketches, I did an age progression. Now this is going to sound really meta, but her earlier age is actually a reference to the earlier interpretations of her character. When I first designed her, she had blonde hair in double pigtails and, but her first design wasn't lacking robotic limbs, she's had those since the first drawing of her character. (That I still have in my room somewhere, I did it in like the 8th grade and it looks really awkward.) The reason she doesn't have robotic limbs is that in the story that I was planning, there's a horrible horrible accident with a castle gate closing down at a very wrong time, that would lead her to getting them.

Then in the second sketch you see her sans legs and left arm. When I first designed her robotic limbs they looked like this, very sort of skeletal and minimalist, just servos and angular metal framework. I always had the idea that since she was still growing at this time, every year or so she'd get new ones as to not outgrow her robotic anatomy. It's kind of like buying children clothes you know they're going to grow out of so you don't get them anything too fancy.

But somewhere along the line she started getting involved in fighting and recognized she had a good hope of winning fights if she upgraded herself, since weight training won't make bionics any stronger. This would maybe be where the more curvy, stronger looking design came from, they're a custom job done by herself. (Henceforth all the custom steam-powered punch and stuff.) I'd say these are very loosely based off of Edward Elric's limbs, especially the giant 'flathead screw' joints, (see ed's shoulder.)

And if you'll remember my earlier drawings, the bionics used to be silver/steel instead of a dirty brown color. This was done because I've had the idea that whatever comic I'm going to write takes place in this steampunk/atompunk style world and the shiny silver looked too Neo-Futuristic. (The metal colors were actually lifted from that full steampunk drawing I did awhile ago and merged with the more modern looking limbs that were much easier to draw, with some minor design tweaks.)

Though don't ask me why there are rockets on a supposedly steampunk character. In very early sketches the rockets came from the bottom of her feet but at some point I started mounting them on the side of the calf and gave them the ability to vector thrust in reverse. This offered up more versatility since she could (as pictured) glue herself to walls or ceilings or fly feet-first at an enemy and kick them over. (Honestly I think the inspiration for that came from my flying powers in dreams, I liked the exciting way I moved, being able to control my direction with thrust vectors, and then tried to apply it to another character.) Also when I first created the character, her name handle was "Rocket Raiah", because in her earliest interpretation she used a rocket launcher instead of a hammer.

Oh yeah, the hammer. It just made sense in character that she needed a huge hammer as her weapon. (My friend suggested a chainsaw but I turned him down.) But when I started playing around with the rocket boosters, the logical conclusion was to add a rocket to the rear end of the hammer allowing it more striking force. Then I took it up to 11 and decided the whole hammer has like a built in Reaction Control System where it would be able to fly back into her hand if it gets knocked out, or attack things all on its own. (Also I'd have to say it does look like how the Super Sledge looks in F04, to an extent.)

And the punch. The world she exists in has the weirdest technological evolution compared to our own. Nanorobots exist to stitch nerve endings to a transistor port that amplifies the signals but this technology came out but plastics were never invented. Rocket technology is so well understood that someone with the know how can make a whole bunch of them, miniaturized and perfectly reliable, in their bedroom but guns don't exist in this universe, or at the very least, never evolved past muskets and cannons. (Because something much better came along.) Ever since her inception, She had a shotgun punch built into her arm, but upon realizing I was stealing from the blonde haired girl from RWBY (technically RWBY somehow stole from me given when I created the character.) But I had to change that for real when I dropped the 'no projectile guns in this verse' bomb on her. So instead the force propelling her powerful punch is a small 'shell' full of water that gets punctured and heated by an electrode rod inside her arm and boils into steam almost instantly, creating an explosion of steam and a powerful punch, and giving the awesome shell ejecting look.

Some parts of my inspiration simply come down to not necessarily practicality, but whatever I think she, Raiah as a character would do to upgrade herself. (I think she's more concerned with what would be cool than what would be practical to beating her enemy, but really I'm just pleading the 'Rule of Cool') I have yet to draw her (heh heh) penultimate upgrades. Let's just say there is one type of gun that is allowed around here, and she has it, along with some other surprises...

Good lord how did I talk so much about my sources of inspiration...

<-- My reaction when I see the wall of text. Hehe That aside its a lot of info to take in but it did explain a lot.I don't know why I never thought of Ed's arm when I looked at it but perhaps its because you always keep your characters so detailed and your so creative that I never expected for you to draw inspiration from it. I don't really know what steam punk is but I did notice that change and it seems better. Maybe because i like that old timely kind of feel to it.Hmm...I like a lot of things about her. But one thing I liked in particular was how you chose to put the rockets to the side and for the hammer to fly that way back to her as well. It reminds me of thor's boomerang like hammer. Again,Its astounding how much detail you put into creating her. But I suppose you had time to think about it since she was created years ago. ^.^ keep up the good work. Its also understandable if you feel like the drawings weren't spent on for long enough but I still think they were great.

Part 3 of 3. Almost accidentally posted on Cafe's thread. She posted something, better go check it out.

Omitted her ultimate combat upgrade, since if I ever do a comic, I want that to be surprise.

Also I can't freaking figure out how to get the shading on hair to work the way I want it to...

I think I just found Eye a new best friend...

Jonathan is no longer the evil overlord of my dreams. Ever since I befriended (that was like over a year ago now...man, time flies) him he doesn't show up nearly as much. When he does he never means anyone any real harm, but he still likes to cause some trouble...

I think I work better with the larger canvas sizes and smaller line weight. I still only have half an idea what to do with the backgrounds though. Maybe I should try rendering it in illustrator or something to keep the lines straight, or I just need practice drawing something other than characters.

Looking good.She must have some insane amount of strength though to carry those heavy looking weapons. Also, that final transformation looks delicious. Like seriously. I want a sandwich like that too. XD What exactly are you going for with the hair lighting? Maybe you should look up some tutorials on youtube to see if you can figure it out.

How could you create my worst nightmare? > w < Eye and Jonathan working together will tear my dream world apart. Hehe Still, I really like the scenario and you drew everyone in it so stylish too. Love the incorporation of the masks. Honestly I was afraid of that scream type of mask a long time ago during Halloween and the red mask looks like a theatre mask from a wall painting I saw in the museum today. Larger canvases are definitely better to work with. If you feel like getting better with backgrounds you should practice. I need to practice too. Oh and I didn't post any art yet. It was just a reply. I still have to draw the jack/Jonathan picture. Good news is I'll be free to draw it tomorrow.

Bloop random practice page expressions and such. Eyes and hands never really seem to stay the same around here.



This one was supposed to come out on Christmas, but I saw the colors were coming out kinda crummily and lost motivation to work on it.

: D Those look great. It feels like your art has changed quite a bit since I first saw it. You must be proud of what you accomplished with your art for 2016. I'm still working on things but im happy with my progress as well. But for the second pic did you not add the eye shines on purpose? Either way I like the down to earth feel I'm getting from it and the background is more detailed. Seeing the girl on Raiah's shoulder feeding her is super cute too. X3 Its nice to see how you incorporated the dream cafe in there.But since my store was bought by another company and I was forced to change my name it just hasn't been the same. Hehe <--- My lame attempt to make a joke. XD

for how long have you been back to being DawnEye11?

But for the second pic did you not add the eye shines on purpose?

It was an experiment with my drawing style. I wanted to see if I could draw characters without pupils and eye shines and strangely I think I like it better. It makes my style seem more unique. Since I was experimenting with how to draw eyes I figured I would draw Eye agian. I think you could shrink this down and use it as an Eye-con for something if you wanted to.

I love that pic of Eye so much I will shrink it down to an avatar size and put it as profile or avatar pic.for dream views* w *
Um...I changed it a few days ago I think. XD Did I make you rc for a moment? Jk The no pupils does make it more unique. It reminds me of how cartoon eyes look like but the way you draw your characters
compliments it.

Also, thank goodness for auto save. My phone powered off while typin this message. >.<

DawnEye, I wish you had more dream guides I could draw, they're making for good practice.

(I was thinking my new years resolution was going to be to draw something everyday. I need to get a tumblr or something.)

( /* w *\)Woah. I know its practice but thanks a bunch for doing pics of them.It feels like you totally mastered drawing my dream guides. Its so beautiful. The colors, designs and pose emanate their persona so well. I feel like I need to put more thought into my designs now. Also, I'm definitely saving both pics. I could probably put them up on my dream journal page. It would make it easier for people to know my guides just by looking at it. Oh and I tried tumblr once but there are so many people in it, it might be tuff to get noticed. Still its probably worth a try.

You should make a manga or American comic book with this character, she is so cool and I would love to know her story and see her in action

One of my new years resolutions was to draw something everyday for the rest of the year. That doesn't necessarily mean I'll be posting to this thread every single day as they might just be practice drawings and what not. Though I really did not draw anything on the second. Though between getting an infection and having my car break down I think I have ample excuse. Anyways I was on a nice roll with these character badges and they're fun and don't take a lot of time to do.

You should make a manga or American comic book with this character, she is so cool and I would love to know her story and see her in action

I have been wanting to get back into doing comics for awhile now. In late elementary all the way up through 10th grade I ran a comic called "Kyle and Gary". It was kind of a bog standard comedy setup about two half-brothers who just go through the usual comedy hijinx. Generally the idea of each plot was to take a relatively mundane starting point and cause it to cascade into absurdity, such as when a valuable family vase gets broken by accident they must seek out the other one buried in a crypt on the other side of the planet before their mom gets back from the grocery store. But looking back I realize most of the jokes were just references (anyone remember gangnam style? The dumb arrow to the knee joke? Yeah.) and others just don't land. Really it was harmless enough, and I don't cringe too hard reading through it. But I'm certainly not going to post it.

But I officially dropped the strip four years ago and I've been running around with my hair on fire trying to figure out what kind of comic I might do next. I've thought about a comic based around my adventures lucid dreaming, but I have problems with characterization of my recurring dream characters, and worse, myself. Also, Dreams spiral around themes very personal to me and I don't think I'd be comfortable covering them as themes in the story.

I mean I could obviously just create a character from scratch and design their psyche. But it always bugged me that unless you really worked hard, you'd never really have the depth and complexity you get from using someone's actual dream journal. Most works that center around dreams tend to be blatantly obvious with their symbolism and it can be very hard to coax out the subtlety and nuance you get from a real Oneironaut.

I had drafted this story called Nightmare Hunter. It actually started off as a draft of a lucid dreaming story (still holding its original title) but as of now the story has very little, if anything to do with lucid dreaming, and the original characters have been relegated to a secondary squad. Instead it's a demon hunter/supernatural type and the only real relation to nightmares is that the monsters are captured inside a dreamcatcher. (Albeit a special dreamcatcher that has the ability to catch 'nightmares' in the real world.)

I had also began planning a story called 'Farr'. It was a science fiction story about an artificially intelligent robotic space probe and the last human being in the galaxy trying to get back to the earth from the andromeda galaxy by joining a crew of on-the-run space pirates led by a cranky but brilliant old female alien.

Those look nice! Posting a pic everyday does seem like too much but practice is good. You should definitely post your comics or make one if you have time. It doesn't have to be dream related though.

More character Badges. Alduir and David. I don't think I draw either of them enough for how much I enjoy their designs.

I'm starting to feel like this "Draw something everyday" thing is getting a bit spammy. On the days I haven't done a character badge I've been working on a dream-inspired picture.

My dad saw me across the room and thought I was drawing Donald Trump.

So JadeGreen, you kind of subtlety implied that you wanted some constructive criticism. I'll do my best.

Your style is obviously very suited for a comic or animation, it's not realism you strive for, I'll take that into account.
But please don't neglect or abandon traditional mediums/art altogether. For instance pencil and paper are so simple and damn useful to learn with.
All art whether the style is more anime, cartoony or realistic is all based on fundamentals.
Those artists who drew TLA, they do know their anatomy very well. It's the foundation where all styles are built upon.
But of course you are still able to convey a lot of expressiveness, ideas, poses, stories, etc. Your lack (for a better word) of anatomy doesn't seem to hinder that.
It's staggering to see, sometimes you're anatomy is spot on believable, other times it's a bit watered down.
Now I wonder, you seem to be at home at your current style. A bit too much, be sure to learn and study from art that inspires you, real-life, and what-not to continue, experiment and improve upon your current style. It should never be at it's final stages, a change to no-pupils could be temporary or evolve. Or for fun-practise see if you can invent a new style. Don't get too attached, though. Variety in drawing is also important. Too much of the same, perhaps not a good idea, if you use your own work as a reference too much, apart from the good things, you inevitably copy over your mistakes and strengthen those bad habits.

The thing is, there's a lot of progress to be seen in your drawings. Some of those drawings, I think are really creative and well-executed (the snowy landscape, ultimate weapon upgrade, etc). The biggest thing that can improve is probably efficiency along with anatomy, so that you can draw in a shorter amount a time with greater quality. Your consistency in style is great, excellent for comics, but obviously that also means inevitably that it stagnates a bit.

Your lines are almost all the same thickness with a relatively big diameter. Varying line weight will most certainly add appeal and interest.
You're shading is basic and most of the time it seems to works. If you want a fun and challenging practice. Draw a cool pose of a character. Be sure that the anatomy and clothing folds are correct. Then add a 3D light source arrow at various angles and shade your character in a few times. Dramatic lighting coming from beneath, backlighting from behind etc. all on the same character.
For faces, I can only say draw skulls. Study faces the relative positioning of it all, how a face rotates, self-portraits, etc. So many things you can do here.
Anatomy as a whole, obviously study, there's no other way around it, if you draw a character be sure to have some references around.
Hair, you seem to say a lot, that you have trouble with hair. Well you have to shade in bundles of hair more. See how other artists do it. Learn from them. Hair has to have at least some volume, so that it doesn't seem like it's a part of the skull, but rather on top of the skull.

Some insights in your drawing process. Yeah that's pretty much how I would approach it too. Early sketch -> refinement -> painting. But of course you're doing more of a comic look. When we make a mistake, we can easily correct with lasso and other tools in the painting process. You don't have that flexibility in a comic drawing. You're early stages of the process are way more important and this should be reflected in how much time you spent on it. Be sure to flip the canvas from time to time (make a shortcut of that command). And take more time in the early stages. Maybe more layers of refinement can help too, with the previous layer on lower opacity.

But please do continue with making drawings that you love. 'Draw something a day' it's great not spam, but don't let these drawings you do now be the only thing that you do. Good luck.

Lol Donald trump. For him to be Donald trump he would need the blue suit he always wears.Also, I think he looks too good to be trump. ^^ No Offense.

But please don't neglect or abandon traditional mediums/art altogether. For instance pencil and paper are so simple and damn useful to learn with.
All art whether the style is more anime, cartoony or realistic is all based on fundamentals.
Those artists who drew TLA, they do know their anatomy very well. It's the foundation where all styles are built upon.

I actually took a life drawing class last term, and rather enjoyed it. I had some work to upload but the main barrier keeping me from doing so is a lack of means to convert it to digital. I don't have a scanner, and I tried taking pictures of some drawings but all I have is a phone camera.

It's staggering to see, sometimes you're anatomy is spot on believable, other times it's a bit watered down.
Now I wonder, you seem to be at home at your current style. A bit too much, be sure to learn and study from art that inspires you, real-life, and what-not to continue, experiment and improve upon your current style. It should never be at it's final stages, a change to no-pupils could be temporary or evolve. Or for fun-practise see if you can invent a new style. Don't get too attached, though. Variety in drawing is also important. Too much of the same, perhaps not a good idea, if you use your own work as a reference too much, apart from the good things, you inevitably copy over your mistakes and strengthen those bad habits.

That is one habit I need to get into. Is using more references. Sure I tend to distort anatomy a little, both in the face and body. I never liked to go the distances some anime styles go with the huge eyes and the very thin bodies. (In fact my distortions tend to be individualized to each character.) But It's still important that I make things look correct even if they're distorted. Another art style I really, really like (and maybe should draw from some more) is that of the Gorillaz. They use a lot of anatomical distortion yet are still gorgeous.

The thing is, there's a lot of progress to be seen in your drawings. Some of those drawings, I think are really creative and well-executed (the snowy landscape, ultimate weapon upgrade, etc). The biggest thing that can improve is probably efficiency along with anatomy, so that you can draw in a shorter amount a time with greater quality. Your consistency in style is great, excellent for comics, but obviously that also means inevitably that it stagnates a bit.

Very true. Anatomy could be fixed by studying some more references and doing some real life sketching. On the subject of stagnation, one thing I've noticed is I very rarely draw from real life when I'm drawing on my own time. I almost always draw fictional characters. Now at the very least, I draw a wide variety of characters with different features, so I get practice doing different things. And I do tend to stick to what I know and have been pondering ways to branch out. Other subject matter and stylistic influences that might interest me. I sketched some spacecraft in my spare time back before the turn of the new year. Drawing machines might be a good way for me to improve my backgrounds and perspective, since it can be more technical. If I ever get sick of characters, I'll have to develop and experiment with those drawings. I'd also like to do some more monsters and creatures.

I'm also glad you see the improvement. Basically the reason I started this thread.

Your lines are almost all the same thickness with a relatively big diameter. Varying line weight will most certainly add appeal and interest.
You're shading is basic and most of the time it seems to works. If you want a fun and challenging practice. Draw a cool pose of a character. Be sure that the anatomy and clothing folds are correct. Then add a 3D light source arrow at various angles and shade your character in a few times. Dramatic lighting coming from beneath, backlighting from behind etc. all on the same character.

Line weight is always something that's challenged me. But most of my stylistic influences (TLA, at least if you're looking at screenshots from the show) generally have even line weight. (Though it's thinner). Frankly it's just something that I have trouble paying attention to, both in my own art and others'.

I feel like I could make a very fun and interesting animated gif doing this practice, drawing a character and having a light source orbiting around them.

For faces, I can only say draw skulls. Study faces the relative positioning of it all, how a face rotates, self-portraits, etc. So many things you can do here.
Anatomy as a whole, obviously study, there's no other way around it, if you draw a character be sure to have some references around.
Hair, you seem to say a lot, that you have trouble with hair. Well you have to shade in bundles of hair more. See how other artists do it. Learn from them. Hair has to have at least some volume, so that it doesn't seem like it's a part of the skull, but rather on top of the skull.

That is one thing we did not do in the life drawing class; draw skulls. (I think I drew a pelvis and lower spine at one point.) We learned some basic facial proportions though. (I actually have one character who's face is half-skull. Maybe with references of a skull, a few detailed face sketches of him would be of benefit.)

Some insights in your drawing process. Yeah that's pretty much how I would approach it too. Early sketch -> refinement -> painting. But of course you're doing more of a comic look. When we make a mistake, we can easily correct with lasso and other tools in the painting process. You don't have that flexibility in a comic drawing. You're early stages of the process are way more important and this should be reflected in how much time you spent on it. Be sure to flip the canvas from time to time (make a shortcut of that command). And take more time in the early stages. Maybe more layers of refinement can help too, with the previous layer on lower opacity.

Hmm... A second layer of refinement. That might be nice in some areas. Or just more time and effort put into the first layer of refinement. That is defiantly good advice. I'll play around with it next time. Between cleaning up my sketch layers and using a tad more references I'm bound to see a jump in anatomy. I've already come so far in just a few months of practice on the tablet, and it's nice to know I can go so much farther. Thanks.

Lol Donald trump. For him to be Donald trump he would need the blue suit he always wears.Also, I think he looks too good to be trump. ^^ No Offense.

He's also not firing anybody. Yeah. Andi came out unusually handsome this time around. Don't know if it's the pose or the tweaks to my style or what.

I drew something today, but it was just a sketch on paper. Working out some difficult poses and expressions on dream-me.