New projects:
I've been working on open art requests in the drawthreads for /a/ and /e/ recently. I've posted a pinup of Tifa Lockhart from the FFVII remake in a Chocobo-themed bikini, which you can see here, and another pinup of Dana from Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana in a bellydancer-style version of her costume, which you can see here.
Digital Paint Progress Check:
For these two pieces, I've been trying to take the lessons I learned from entirely digitally-painted pieces and applying them back to the way I normally draw (exaggerated proportions and the use of lineart). I think the results pretty much speak for themselves, though. You can see a comparison between a piece I completed in December of 2020 and my most recent piece from yesterday here (external link).
Lessons learned:
- Color choices are crucial. You can't just sample the colors on a reference image and use those straight away, the colors need to be balanced against the overall palette. I still struggle with this in some regards, but I'm improving.
- Dark colors for backgrounds where a void would otherwise not work aren't great unless that color has a direct impact against the overall palette.
- Same as above with light sources - the light should impart color to any pigmented surface it hits.
- If you can replace some of the hard lines with shading and highlights without ruining the appearance of the lineart, it should be done.
Other notes:
A lot of this is just common sense, but sometimes it isn't so common when you're 10 hours deep on something you just want to be done with. In any case, I'm not exactly where I'd like to be (I'm working ever more toward a simplified painterly style, which I'm sill far off from I feel), but I'm close enough where I'm pretty confident with my ability to color now.
Current struggle:
At this point, my biggest current struggles are keeping point of focus and lens distortion effects in mind and adequately conveying the volume of the subject, both of which play into the overall struggle with dynamic poses. I'm working on it!