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Art Questions/Suggestions

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We have the wonderful Sprite Practice Thread, but this is a bit different.

 

This is for art advice, from the seriously important to the little details to the random decisions you can't make yourself.

This is for any kind of medium - painting, drawing, sprites, photoshopped, stained glass, etc.

This is for any kind of piece - portrait, banner, avatar, signature, show piece, etc.

 

This is for any kinds of questions you have. Does your dragon have hangbutt? Is your person's face too unsymmetrical? Are your wolves realistic?

What color would look good with the blue? What colors should you make the house?

What would be a good name for this random piece? What should you name the characters?

 

Please also feel free to utilize this topic for writing, too. At a loss for character names? Don't know where your characters are taking you and want some advice? What color should this cat that's only going to be in one chapter be? Is the grammar in a sentence correct? What should the title be?

 

And etc.

 

This will be a looser topic, so please feel free to use it. Maybe you don't have or don't want an art topic, but need advice. Maybe no one in your art topic is answering any questions you have. Maybe you want to make something for a competition here or elsewhere, and just want to ask a question on what colors match or what a theme means or anything else.

(Although, please don't take this to mean you can't post in competition topics. The competition topics used to be a great place to share the piece you made and get compliments on it. This isn't a replacement for that. There's nothing wrong with commenting on a work in a competition or whatnot.)

 

So there you have it. Art questions for any medium. Enjoy and don't be afraid to ask questions. :3

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I would like some people to help me with a name for this dragon.

 

In case you missed the link, here it is: Deathdragon

 

please PM me a name.

 

I do have two which I think are awesome: Bloodshine and Claw of Death.( I may use this again for the same purpose, b/c I will make a few charries. feel free to PM me on what is happening. Also I may put each story chapter on here(DCF) or Clans Entwined.I will have no humans in my story and you may make a charrie for me, if you like.)

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I know you said to PM, but I'll go ahead and post here. I love the name Bloodshine. I'd go with that. :3

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Just a thought:

Mystbane (the bane of the DarkMyst dragons)

 

Bloodshine gets my vote too. It's nice and creepy.

 

 

 

@Sockpuppet Strangler Do we have a thread for stamps? Using a stamp-style pic or animated gif in signatures is a big thing right now and I couldn't find a thread for them.

Edited by yosofine

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I believe we used to have one, but it died of inactivity. I think people keep those to their own art threads now, but I wouldn't say no if you wanted to create one. Could make it easier for people when they're looking for a certain badge/stamp. ^^

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I do have a few other dragons that need names.

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anybody got more ideas for the colors of more dragons and their names/history?

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there is a minor character that could have a name, just go to the deathdragon link and look at more of the art. It has lightshine, bloodshine, and the pygmy.

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Hey, just wondering, I can't find one, is there a thread for posting dragon fan art? Because I have a quick Ember Dragon doodle I want to show off.

 

Thanks in advance!

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Amaterasu, you can make 2 threads: one for writing and one for art. Put it in the original works section.

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I can flip that for you if you want.

 

Edit: user posted image Like this?

Edited by MangaFreak

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Okay, I got a small question.

 

When I was about 18 I could draw fairly well (Pencil/Paper).

 

My Uncle accidentally slammed my hand in a car door that same year.

 

Now whenever I try to draw my hand shakes and I can't make straight lines.

 

How can I fix this?

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I'm in the middle of tediously coloring/shading one of those white dragons in photoshop...but I'm stuck. I can't decide what color the underbelly should be.

 

user posted image

 

As you can see, I'm only mostly done with the head of the adult...the neck/claws still need drastic shading and I need to draw on the scales. And go over everything in detail, and tune the colors. And I haven't even started on the lil' hatchling yet...eh. :/

 

Should the underbelly be the same color as the rest of the dragon? Or should it be monochrome silver (not sure how that would look)? Dull, or luminous? Maybe a darker color, or a really pale white with almost no grays?

 

Any background suggestions, along with tips on dragon anatomy and technique in general is also appreciated! Particularly since I draw people, not dragons. Although I've picked up some tricks from a skilled friend of mine and from viewing other people's art, I'm still rather unfamiliar with them (especially the ones with distinctive styles). Thanks! biggrin.gif

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Okay, I got a small question.

 

When I was about 18 I could draw fairly well (Pencil/Paper).

 

My Uncle accidentally slammed my hand in a car door that same year.

 

Now whenever I try to draw my hand shakes and I can't make straight lines.

 

How can I fix this?

Probably just practice. 3= Maybe try some sort of wrist brace or get one of those keyboard or mouse pad things (example: what's under their wrists, but I've seen smaller sized ones) and draw resting your hand on that or something?

 

(Also, ouch!)

 

Indura - holy cow, that is pretty. o_o

Maybe some kind of super light purple different from the rest of the dragon? A little something so it doesn't blend in so well with the dragon and disappear from view, kind of. Gorgeous dragon!

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@Sockpuppet Strangler: Thanks for the compliment! By light purple...do you mean like this? Though I rarely do blue/purple color schemes, it doesn't look half bad and I'll certainly consider sticking with it.

*sigh* Right now, I'm mentally kicking myself. I told myself I wouldn't show this picture before it was finished - I wanted it to be a nice surprise...but I just couldn't decide on the color. Ah well.

 

@Kaoto: Slammed in a car door...*wince*

If your hand shakes, instead of putting your pencil down to make a single solid stroke, why not do it with multiple, sketchy lines? Messy, but you can use the eraser to clean up afterwards. Here's a quick example. As you can see, there are no solid lines - all you need to do is guide the pencil in the right direction. I hope your hand gets better! ohmy.gif

Edited by Indura

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As you can see, I'm only mostly done with the head of the adult...the neck/claws still need drastic shading and I need to draw on the scales. And go over everything in detail, and tune the colors. And I haven't even started on the lil' hatchling yet...eh. :/

 

Should the underbelly be the same color as the rest of the dragon? Or should it be monochrome silver (not sure how that would look)? Dull, or luminous? Maybe a darker color, or a really pale white with almost no grays?

If you don't want to go with the cream color of the sprite, you could try a warm gray and see how that looks, then use spots of the cool blue within it and warm gray on the rest to tie it together.

 

Warm gray might be too much though, if you don't want to add shading to the rest of the dragon. I think it would add depth to the dragon. Something to consider, anyhow.

 

To Kaoto_Susanao235,

 

Try to retrain your hand. You were good before and you'll be good now, the vision is still in you. It might not look the way you want or are used to now, or for a while, but I think practice will help a lot. Do what you did to get good in the first place. Most of the muscles to control your hands are actually in your arms, so perhaps it would help to remember that? Be confident that you can still be as good as you were. And don't worry too much about straight lines, they're over-rated (unless you're a draftsperson).

Edited by Princess Artemis

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Hello my fellow dragon cave users. It's been a while since i posted here, but I have a dilemma. I've started writing some fiction, and I would really like to get an honest and thorough review. I'm not finished with it yet, but I have, for example, one scene that I would really love some feedback on. I tried to get some honest feedback from a friend of mine, but all she said was, "That looks good!". I would like something a bit more detailed than that, lol. Do any of you have any favorite sites that review in a timely manner? I'm also a bit wary because my stuff isn't copyrighted or anything like that, and it could possibly be stolen, how can I avoid this? Please let me know, thanks for your time. smile.gif

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hey i was wonderin if there are any free digital art platforms that i could download, i really wanna start on some digital art

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Hey, this is exactly the kind of topic I'm looking for! I've been in the DC requests a lot and I know there are tons of people who are great with anatomy and such, so I figured the forums might be a good place to seek help. I'm just looking for general structural crit before I finalize this guy. I'm not sure about the back left leg - I think it looks alright, but it's mostly guesswork to be honest and once I'm shading I'm not sure I'll know how!

 

user posted image

 

Somewhat tangentially, I really want to paint him lineless but I have no experience whatsoever doing so and am ghastly afraid of mucking up. Also I only have a week to finish it (it's for my dad's birthday!) so I don't know that I exactly have time to be trying new things. I'm already stretching out of my comfort zone in some respects. I think I'm going to make it a lined drawing, and maybe later I can move on to lineless stuff smile.gif (That had nothing to do with the help I'm seeking; I just needed to rant xd.png)

 

@Danse: Argh, I know how you feel. It's all good and well to be told your stuff is good, but we know we're not perfect! We want to change that! Or at least get closer to achieving the impossible xd.png I don't personally know of any sites, but I could take a look at your scene if you like. PM me if you're interested? As for copyrighting, I'm no expert on the legal jargon but essentially YOUR story is YOUR intellectual property. Yes, it could be stolen, but that doesn't make it legal. I can't really give advice on what to do, but I've never really worried about it.

 

@Indura: For the background, I'd say use complementaries. Try a dark orange-yellow, since you have a light bluish-purple going on. Of course make sure it's not too saturated to let your dragon stand out. You can always use the hue/saturation panel in Photoshop (ctrl+U or command+U) to mess around and see what looks best. For anatomy, the main thing that's sticking out is that the right "hand" seems a bit flat. There would likely be more muscle and flesh in the palm section, especially where it connects to the thumb. Look at your own hand and thumb. It's a big muscle!

 

EDIT: Well, the week went by and I had to keep trucking on with this thing, so now it's finished. I know there are lots of problems with the lighting and probably the anatomy, but I can't be bothered anymore... I'm pretty happy with it anyway. The finished product is here.

Edited by Hexephra

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Not really sure where else to ask this...

 

Anybody ever had something, where they have a picture sort of formed partially in their mind, but when you try to focus on it, you can't picture what it is you want to draw? Like, you know in theory, but you can't quite picture how it would look?

 

Anybody have any suggestions for getting past that block, so I can finally figure out what what I'm trying to draw looks like?

 

 

Also, anybody have tips for drawing crystal shards?

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Not really sure where else to ask this...

 

Anybody ever had something, where they have a picture sort of formed partially in their mind, but when you try to focus on it, you can't picture what it is you want to draw?  Like, you know in theory, but you can't quite picture how it would look?

 

Anybody have any suggestions for getting past that block, so I can finally figure out what what I'm trying to draw looks like?

 

 

Also, anybody have tips for drawing crystal shards?

 

 

For example you might have a idea of a dragon in a pose but you still find it a bit of a blur to see what he is actually doing, but you might already know that you WANT the dragon to be breathing fire, and thus work towards a palette that will compliment the colours of the fire. You will start to pick out certain shapes related to the colour you choose. It might not be breathing fire, but I bet there is one thing in your mind that relates to a colour and thus you can build the image on a piece of paper from there.

 

Crystal shards. Well the subject might be dragons as opposed to scientific drawings of crystal shards. But feel free to look around the internet (museum sites, the national gallery of archives, even the library) for images in books that show scientific drawings by field archeoligists. Google a few or these words, and spend an hour browsing sites.

This will get you a foundation to work from and good luck, I hope you create your own specialised version!

Edited by StarDebut

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For example you might have a idea of a dragon in a pose but you still find it a bit of a blur to see what he is actually doing, but you might already know that you WANT the dragon to be breathing fire, and thus work towards a palette that will compliment the colours of the fire. You will start to pick out certain shapes related to the colour you choose. It might not be breathing fire, but I bet there is one thing in your mind that relates to a colour and thus you can build the image on a piece of paper from there.

 

Crystal shards. Well the subject might be dragons as opposed to scientific drawings of crystal shards. But feel free to look around the internet (museum sites, the national gallery of archives, even the library) for images in books that show scientific drawings by field archeoligists. Google a few or these words, and spend an hour browsing sites.

This will get you a foundation to work from and good luck, I hope you create your own specialised version!

Mmm, the problem is that it's not so much the pose (nor the colors, I already have those firmly in my mind), it's the details of exactly how to draw what I'm trying to picture. I have an idea for the body, but I cannot for the life of me properly picture the wings. I have no idea how they're shaped, if they're shaped like actual wings or are just dubbed wings because they magically allow flight...

 

They're basically "wings made from crystal shards that reflect a broken image". And I have no idea how to draw that. >_<

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