[ SECRET POST #2192 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2192 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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[Tales of the Abyss]


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[Merlin, RPS]


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[Lilo & Stitch]


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 032 secrets from Secret Submission Post #313.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 - posted twice ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

Project Yuna!

[supermanda]

Hi, F!S :)

This is what I have so far lol









It's not much, but it's a start. Kind of embarrassing, but I'm the biggest beginner ever, so it's what's to be expected. I'm working on her eyes right now. I am beyond delighted for this :)

Re: Project Yuna!

[lunabee34]

Very cool! Good for you. I wish I had spent more time on drawing as I enjoyed it in art classes in high school but haven't done any in decades.

Re: Project Yuna!

[supermanda]

Yes! Same here. I used to draw The Powerpuff Girls and tons of Final Fantasy characters all the time when I was in elementary. All the time. Practice, practice, practice though!

Are you thinking of maybe starting up again?

Re: Project Yuna!

[(Anonymous)]

It's miles ahead of my own first tries, don't worry!

If I may, try to focus more on proportions. Look at various different reference pics to, say, be able to tell how many "eyes" tall is her face, or how many "mouths" wide, and so on. Also try to get a handle for the right placement of each body part; trying to imagine her skeleton and then some muscles behind the skin helps.

(It's easier to place the eyes if you look at images of skulls and pay attention to the eye sockets and how they fit together with the rest of the skull, for example.)

Re: Project Yuna!

[supermanda]

And this is why I post my progress - wonderful! Thank you so much. Great advice :)

how many "eyes" tall is her face, or how many "mouths" wide
This is spectacular. I love little tricks like this. Thank you, thank you again!

Re: Project Yuna!

[miss_yuka]

I just wanted to say, you're super cool for posting these, I've been drawing way longer than you and I never show of my stuff out of embarrassment >_<

Also, it completely slipped my mind when I saw your previous post, but check out ProkoTV for some awesome tutorials!

Re: Project Yuna!

[supermanda]

Well, if you ever do end up posting, would you let me know? I'd love to see your work!

Fabulous! Thank you for the link! :)

Re: Project Yuna!

[(Anonymous)]

OT but you are super pretty....i mean wow

Re: Project Yuna!

[supermanda]

Anonoodles, you are my shining star. Thank you kindly!

Re: Project Yuna!

[vethica]

My thoughts exactly. *_*

Re: Project Yuna!

[(Anonymous)]

+1 seriously

+2

[(Anonymous)]

O.o I thought that was the celebrity she was trying to draw or something.

Re: Project Yuna!

[greenvelvetcake]

What is Project Yuna?

Re: Project Yuna!

[supermanda]

Project Yuna is an art project I'm working on for this fine specimen:


I have never drawn before, but have always wanted to, so I made a thread about that desire in F!S a couple of days ago. The thread was loaded with tons of friendly users offering their helpful tips, and I was inspired to start working on one character/animal/thing/etc. - which ended up being a Final Fantasy character: Yuna.

So each day, I draw her in my notebook. So that way I can keep track of what day I'm on and I'll be able to see how much I'm improving. I'm quite excited :)

Re: Project Yuna!

[siliconsara]

Has anyone mentioned Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain? (http://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Right-Side-Brain-Definitive/dp/1585429201/)
My Drawing-1 instructor used it as a text-book, and it honestly works.

Re: Project Yuna!

[supermanda]

No one has mentioned that! Thank you so much for the link! I'll go look for this one tomorrow, possibly.

Re: Project Yuna!

[gobbledigook]

I think the attitude of not worrying about the first drawings being masterpieces will help you a lot in the long run. :) Remember that not everything you draw has to be impressive and perfect for everyone.

Re: Project Yuna!

[supermanda]

That's an excellent thing to note, for sure. Thank you! Your icon has my heart, by the way <3

Re: Project Yuna!

[(Anonymous)]

Great start! I have a few other suggestions I hope will be helpful -

Curves! There are very few straight lines on a human face. Most features, even those that look angular, have subtle curves to them somewhere. Study reference pictures to find out where those curves are, and what their shapes are. For instance, in that last picture, the lines of the nose are very harsh, and the tip is too pronounced. As for the mouth and eyes, I think you've got a case of "drawing what you think should be there" instead of "drawing what you see." Again, I can't emphasise the importance of reference pictures enough. I started out doing the same things you're doing now, but the more I drew, the more I realised the shape of the mouth, eyes, etc were very different from what I'd vaguely imagined them to be.

Of course, if you want to draw Yuna in an anime style (or just stylised in general), you can certainly get away with a more stylised drawing, but I think learning to draw in a more realistic style first will help you tremendously. Got to know the rules first before you break them in creative ways, yeah? =D

The other major suggestion I have is something that worked for me, but YMMV. I practiced drawing individual features first, without worrying about placing them in a face. Somewhere in my room there's a sketchbook full of eyes, noses and hands with no faces or bodies to attach to. All those areas I had problems rendering, I practiced over and over. Once I was more comfortable with them, I worked on placement.

As an example, noses - which I was terrible at. I sketched them a lot, till I got comfortable drawing all sorts of noses. (Variety is important!) Then I sketched a featureless face, and very lightly indicated where the eyes/mouth would go. Then it's just a matter of placing the nose accurately. If you're already comfortable with eyes and mouths, go ahead and place those as well (if you're not, sketch like you did with the noses until you are). Bam, you've got a face with most of your features intact. Figure out the ears next, and then where the hairline is, give your face a hairstyle, then lastly, work on shading to show the contours of the face (cheeks, chin etc). Step by step. Take it slow, and refine each one before racing ahead of yourself.

NB: Remember that overall placement is important, though! It doesn't matter if you can sketch an eye perfectly if you're consistently misplacing it/drawing it the wrong size/etc when it comes to a full face. Similarly, you can draw a perfect face but make it too big for the body, and that will also ruin the drawing. Mind your proportions, even as you progress through each stage of your drawing.

Um, this got a bit longer than I'd intended (sorry, I ramble). Hope it's helpful, anyway. I'm looking forward to seeing more progress shots! =D

Re: Project Yuna!

[(Anonymous)]

SA

Oh, and seconding what the anon right above me said. Don't worry about getting everything right! My old art teacher made us spend our first lesson with her drawing with our non-dominant hands, and then without looking at the paper, and then without references, and then without ever letting us touch an eraser... it all helped to make us comfortable with making mistakes; we learned to work with them rather than beat ourselves up over them. Made a lot of difference to me. =D

Re: Project Yuna!

[supermanda]

Yes!!! Spectacular!

Thank you so much, anon! This is great :). I adore that you broke it down for me, and don't worry about writing a novel - I welcome any and all information.

I quite like your suggestion to draw things individually! I was going to do this, but I thought maybe I should work on proportions first. It was quite confusing, but your idea makes tons of sense to me.

I started out doing the same things you're doing now, but the more I drew, the more I realised the shape of the mouth, eyes, etc were very different from what I'd vaguely imagined them to be.
This comforts me immensely *_*

Thank you again, anon!! :DDDD <3

Re: Project Yuna!

[orangesands]

It looks like you're off to a good start! :D

One thing to keep in mind is that artists use sketches and make guidelines when drawing. Sketching out guidelines will help you make sure your anatomy is proportional, and anatomy is really the heart and soul of portrait drawing. One of the other important skills is learning how to sketch so that you can quickly and easily make adjustments and reposition features. (Sketching is pretty cut and dry. Keep your strokes as light as possible and smooth. Make your lines even, not jaggy. Its hard at first but you get the hang of it pretty quick.)

Here's two tutorials that show the very basic lines of proportion of the human face. (Obviously every face is different, but they all average out to follow these ratios.)

This first tutorial gives some basic tips for drawing, and includes really clear images of those guidelines I mentioned. ;) Majnouna also has a lot of other great tutorials for more advanced artists.
http://majnouna.deviantart.com/art/Express-guide-Figure-drawing-11939496?q=gallery%3Amajnouna%2F6557&qo=29

And this tutorial shows how you go from those basic guidelines to a finished work.
http://troxell.deviantart.com/art/Drawing-the-head-87619789

Re: Project Yuna!

[supermanda]

Super helpful stuff. Thank you so, so much! I love all of this information on proportions. It's definitely something I have a hard time with, but only because I haven't quite done anything past wild guesses.

Thank you again!!

Re: Project Yuna!

[elaminator]

Not bad for a start, imo! And Yuna is a lovely character, I'm sure you're going to enjoy drawing her. She's got some beautiful clothing, too. (Which I know you're interested in because of your tumblr, heh.)

Also, I agree you're quite pretty. /unrelated and hopefully not creepy

Re: Project Yuna!

[(Anonymous)]

Hi! Good on you for going for it! I, too, want to improve my art, but I keep procrastinating on it and never getting anything done. XD;

I have two suggestions for you, though!

One, is that I think you may be stuck drawing symbols for facial features and such, rather than trying to draw what the feature actual looks like or how it really works. It's an easy thing to do, because the human brain loves symbols, and especially loves things that look like a human face (that's why ;) can look like a winking face!). I think one of the ways you can help avoid that is to take your reference image and flip it upside-down. It confuses your brain into seeing the image as just lines and shapes, rather than trying to turn it all into symbols.

The other is that you may be getting caught up in the details too soon, and missing the whole picture! You might want to try doing the whole body first, but just breaking it down into shapes and trying to see it three-dimensionally. The head is basically and ovoid shape (face) intersecting a sphere (back of the head). Limbs are connecting tubes. The nose is a pyramid. That sort of thing! It's easier to put detailed features onto a person once you have a good understanding of the surface you're putting them on to. (Though that doesn't mean it's easy. I'm still figuring out how to properly shift heads around and draw features well from different angles, haha!)

Best of luck! I hope you stick with it! :)