I can try that! I was doing a lot of those quick life drawing sketches when I was trying to to get my feet under me in the first place with anatomy /poses, but it's a lot more intimidating with facial realism. Mistakes are a lot more... Upsetting, somehow, when it's faces. Idek
Body language! People don't emote exclusively with their faces, they usually have some degree of fullbody reaction to everything they emote to. Arms waving, hands held up in conciliatory manners, fists clenched, shoulders thrust back or slumping in defeat, slouching or standing straight, even tipping your head in confusion-- every part of your body moves when you emote, unless you're a quadrapalegic. If you've ever done anything with theatre (or like to watch it) that's a good place to start. Most stage actors aren't going to be close enough for the audience to see their face, so they get really good and fullbody emotions.
I've found that with characters like that, body language is the way to go, especially when you're getting used to the design. Strong gestures with hands and posture can just as easily show off a reaction as an expression. Looking at cartoons that exaggerate and emphasize body langue is definitely a good way to start getting an idea of what emotion ties in with what body action. It also helps when you have a good handle on the character's personality, because then you start to know more about how they'd react to X or Y thing with more clarity. fake edit: oops, ninja'd
Fourthing the body language suggestion! expression is often conveyed through that, as well as the face. Everyone already seems to have a good handle on the explanation for that though haha. it certainly can be, it's kind of hard to break that "oh no it looks bad so now i get to feel bad" trial and error is a friend, and mostly just keep at it because although it's discouraging, you will eventually see improvement as you go!
heh I have a lot of theater/acting knowledge but because I'm not very good at reduced-intensity emotional impressions I often end up usure what would leave the characters like they over-act everything. Especialyl with how somber the setting is I wouldn't wanna make ZW look to silly :P
well if you don't have a face, often you will probably end up slightly over-acting. but there isn't really anything wrong with that, especially if people have to take emotional cues from the character when they don't have a facial expression! my own fursona has no face, so I often rely very heavily on what may seem like "overacting" when drawing them. But it seems to get the emotion across
If the character is pretty serious, emotion-by-lack-of-face may actually work in your favor. If it's less serious but still in a somber setting, I think driving emotion mostly by hand gesture would work really well. The One Electronic from Rice Boy comes to mind, and a lot of the kitschy kind of action movie where Gruff Man Can't Emote. When you're not allowed to wave frantically or move your eyebrows, mostly simple hand gestures and shifting your stance tends to do it.
Haha thanks for the couples comment, I think I actually knew that drawing two people actually interacting was a difficult thing to get right so I specifically tried to work towards it, back when I started drawing more seriously (I say more seriously, I don't practice like at all, which explains a lot of why I've stagnated). The chibi is an older piece, but you're right, being less sketchy is something I've been instructed to try before. It resulted in, uhm... Spoiler: A page of shitty cats and extremely shitty dogs mostly Which mostly seemed to prove that people are hard Do you have any suggestions as to where I could find like. Some exercises to help me get more fluid? I mean... I know about like 'try and draw moments from every scene of a movie' or whatever but that idea just kind of flat-out terrifies me. Which... probably means I just need to suck it up, but y'know. Also colours aren't my friends. xD This is what happens when I try colouring: Spoiler: Augh ^ This one is fairly old admittedly
Mostly it just seems like you need practice with coloring! it's not always easy to get right, and one of my favorite suggestions is to use a hard brush, or a filler tool. Also using premade pallets can be really helpful, because then the colors often already mesh together well. It's good for practicing how to use the colors at least. Well the sites I posted earlier some of them have timed reference pictures, which are for learning to draw quickly, with less lines and more learning how to do gesture drawings, which pmuch everyone can benefit from taking time to do every so often. Also those dogs and cats aren't bad at all! Learning the shapes that make up people is hard, one of my favorite exercises in art class in high school was my teacher would give us a piece of paper, draw one squiggle or line on it, and then have us build on that. It was great for dynamic pose practice, and one of those things I still really have fun doing haha.
Oh, and mostly another thing I remembered is just trying to make more long smooth strokes, over choppy ones. Doesn't have to be like the cats and dogs drawing you did. The way you line/finish your sketches is very very short strokes, which is what lends to that static and flat appearance. Mostly you just seem to need to loosen your hand up a little bit!
So I love colors. Two things really got me into colors. One was my color theory class(which I keep telling myself I will recreate a lesson plan for online peeps), the other is using color like shading. For example, color a picture using only warm colors(reds, oranges, yellows, stretching into red-purples is also recommended). Your red-purples would be like your black, while yellow is more of your white. It really helps break the rule in your brain that blue things must be blue, red things red ect. Those palette challenges do a similar thing, but I feel can be a bit hard to grasp initially
Somewhere in the depths of my blog there's a post I reblogged about exercises to help with making long, smooth lines, but I can't find it. But I do remember a few exercises my art instructor set us! These were specifically for helping with pencil work, but I think they're applicable to pretty much everything. They're supposed to help you gain more control over the pencil, and so they'll help if you're struggling with freehanding straight lines, varying line pressure, and so on. When you draw the lines you should start at one edge of your paper and move over to the opposite edge without lifting your pencil from the paper. Draw at a normal speed, and do each exercise in a set of five, or ten, or until you run out of paper - whatever works for you. 1. Draw a line as straight as you can. 2. Draw a straight line, putting very little pressure on the pencil at first and gradually increasing it. 3. Draw a straight line, pressing down firmly at first and gradually decreasing the pressure. 4. Draw a series of loop-de-loops, spacing them evenly and shaping them identically. They'll probably come out all wobbly (like mine up there) and that's fine - it gets better with practice, and it bleeds over into your other artwork. I like these exercises because they're something I can do when I want to draw but don't know what to draw; I can fill pages and pages with just straight(ish) lines or loop-de-loops or whatever. Additionally, our art instructor taught us to draw the lines from left to right because he was teaching a class full of right-handed students, but you're practicing making your hand and your pencil do what you want it to, so you can draw them in either direction, with either hand, and it's still useful.
Senshistock is another pose reference collection I really like. And on colour, purplekecleon has a really good tutorial. It's advanced, but damn, that colourwork.
Oooo. Lots of stuff! This all looks really interesting. I really should try and work on my drawing more... and my writing. I've let my creative ventures lapse really badly over the past few years. ._.
Spoiler: erasable gel pens are not as erasable as they claim to be so, uhm, concrit wanted? regarding the feet, that doll body is basically in permanent en pointe.
(are you willing to accept crit from someone who has absolutely zero art training and is mostly just talking about things they like or don't like?) (spoiler it me)
@whimsicalobservant Okay! Your character really looks like they're moving - like, the sense of movement is very much there for me. I also love how determined their expression is. And the composition of the way the weapon aligns with the movement and their shoulders and even the way the blade curves back with the motion of the sleeves is just making my brain very happy. Their hands do look kind of disproportionately large to me, but that might just be me not quite understanding the perspective very well.
I did the next project in my level-up portrait series! I'm quite glad with how it turned out, and I tried to keep the critique you guys gave me in mind. Spoiler: Mahree I also actually remembered to take progress pics this time! Again, concrit is very welcome
