AuthorTopic: [wip][C&C]Woman's Face  (Read 4662 times)

Offline coreyh2

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[wip][C&C]Woman's Face

on: May 20, 2010, 08:45:24 am
I'm just beginning to learn pixel art. The style I want to learn is low resolution/color comic book style. I don't want to use any dithering. Technically I can use up to 256 colors but I'm trying to stick to 16 for the moment just to see how much is possible.

I'm interested in how to draw better eyes, mouths and general face shading. I haven't really figured out how to do hair so don't critique that.

Offline Kcilc

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Re: [wip][C&C]Woman's Face

Reply #1 on: May 20, 2010, 03:51:42 pm
Welcome to Pixelation!  :)

Well, this is definitely not low-res, and I don't think it would be all that beneficial to try to learn how to draw better faces when you're trying to keep yourself locked into a comic-book style. What comic-book artists do is take a real face, find the parts that really need to be there, and simplify simplify simplify. They do know how to draw a normal face though. The best advice I can give you is to study study study.

Also, at this size, pixel art starts out a whole ton like a painting. You wanna find a big brush, and get the basic planes down before moving into things like wrinkles on the lips, and eyelashes. Those come after the face is 85% drawn.

Oh, and I take it the light source is supposed to be from the upper left because of your shading; her pupils wouldn't be lit up quite so much if that was the case, and her irises would be taking most of the light.

Here's a quick dirty edit:


It's not much of a sight, but maybe it'll help you out somehow.

I basically took out the million shades you used in the eyes to make room for some more skin shades, and sculpted out a face. I'm not much of a lipstick person, so I kept her lips skin color for my own pleasure, and to show you that colors are only one tiny part of a face, and can be done without. The big thing you need to know about lips is that they're not not not flat. They have dips and protrusions that are not showing up in your piece.

Her eyes had a little bit of depth, and I'm proud of you for that; however, I think that your lack of traditional (pencil on paper, or sketching) skills shows through really clearly with the band of light making a semi circle around the bottom of her eyes. There's so much more there; find it.

Your general face shading isn't really there at the moment. You've got some nice shadows by her eyes and cheek, but you need to go further! You need some highlights to really make the face pop, and you need to really sculpt the face with those shades. EDIT: her nose is absolutely TINY.

One last thing; if you're not using a reference, then go find one asap. It will help you to better understand the face you're trying to draw, and not make stupid mistakes like I probably did with my face. If you do have a reference, post it so that we know what you're going for.
« Last Edit: May 20, 2010, 03:57:13 pm by Kcilc »

Offline coreyh2

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Re: [wip][C&C]Woman's Face

Reply #2 on: May 21, 2010, 08:43:57 am
Thanks for the help. Your edit has much better depth then mine. Its a good demonstration of sketchy shading in pixel art without dithering. It reminds me of the faces in a watercolor artbook I looked at.

There was no photo reference for this. I used some measurements and looked at the pencil art in "Drawing the head & figure" by Jack Hamm. I couldn't replicate the pencil art in the book but I tried to put in some of the details. I was just seeing how far I could get at this particular resolution. 256x192 is the size of a single DS screen.

I'm going to rework it some based on your suggestions and then do another one based on a photo.

Was my main skin color choice bad?

Offline Accident

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Re: [wip][C&C]Woman's Face

Reply #3 on: May 21, 2010, 01:42:57 pm
Kcilc's edit was just too yummy to pass up, so I edited that edit myself, at least with making the nose bigger, the mouth fuller, the hair similar. This too was simply out of my own pleasure, but perhaps you can learn something further. Here:



I basically agree with everything he says. You certainly need to follow reference. Reference helps in many things.

and I don't think your main skin colour choice was /bad/, per se, but the colours didn't compliment one another very well.

EDIT: Also, 69 posts. :D :D :D -immature-

Offline Tourist

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Re: [wip][C&C]Woman's Face

Reply #4 on: May 23, 2010, 01:30:38 am
Face is nice but a bit generic.  Nose is too narrow (from the front, the nose lines up with the inner corners of the eyes).  This also makes the mouth too narrow.

One source of a variety of real faces is the mug shot collection posted every Friday at www.thesmokinggun.com.  The lighting on the faces doesn't offer much contrast, but there are usually many different head shapes and hairstyles.

Tourist

Offline coreyh2

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Re: [wip][C&C]Woman's Face

Reply #5 on: May 23, 2010, 10:32:16 am
This is still very much a work in progress. I've moved on to something based on a photo.

Photo is from comic artist's photo reference: women and girls by Buddy Scalera. Its been cropped and smart blurred.



I looked at a old snes game called Spider-man & Venom :maximum carnage. The game isn't that fun but it has some cutscene art that looks a lot like inked and colored comics. The color is flatter then I'd like to use. I like the black outlines but I haven't had much luck replicating the style in this resolution.

Offline bengo

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Re: [wip][C&C]Woman's Face

Reply #6 on: May 24, 2010, 05:32:46 am

I've flipped your image and gray-scaled it so that way you can see the mistakes you've made. You need to start thinking with form, don't allow your mind to symbolize, things like that black line going down her nose for instance aren't there. Try to think in planes, that might help too, if you're trying to go for a 'comic style', even then, the last thing I think of when I see your image is comics, I think more of a contemporary abstract art style if anything, whys that though? Because to be blunt, the image feels flat, especially with the fact that you've added black lines to the mix.

Maybe you should pick up some art books, I think the most relevant one would be: http://www.amazon.com/How-Draw-Comics-Marvel-Way/dp/0671530771, I think you can find this in .pdf form online somewhere so maybe if you look you can find it. You should definitely learn how to do basic construction work and maybe color theory if you don't understand that. I think with a bit of hard work and a better trained eye, you could definitely tackle this and if you want to go for a comic book style, I think you can pull that off too but I'm not sure what you're trying to mean by that, since theres plenty of ways to go about it.

Usually in comic book styles they'll have high contrats visuals, so if you're trying to go for that, my suggestion would be to make darkers darker and lights lighter, i.e. just add more contrast, try to go for that Sin City/A lot of Marvel esque kinda look, see the black works then because its either used to seperate positive/negative space or use as apart of a plane, so it becomes more of a shape instead of a small black line. But yeah, if you could show us some images of what you're trying to go for maybe we can try and help you work towards that vision.
« Last Edit: May 24, 2010, 05:43:41 am by bengoshia »

Offline coreyh2

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Re: [wip][C&C]Woman's Face

Reply #7 on: May 24, 2010, 09:45:07 am
Thanks for the black and white image. That is a useful technique. I've seen tutorials where it starts out grayscale then is colored. I didn't think of checking it out in reverse.

I don't have a clear idea of what my final style will be. I'm just practicing at the moment. The comic book style is much harder then I assumed. Its going to take a while to learn. Obviously my second face is really isn't very comic booky at all. I was trying to copy Kcilc style mostly while basing it on photo.

I'm working on that last image with line art and color as separate layers. That image does look better without the lines. I've already deleted most of the ones I had. I want to figure out how to have black outlines that look good. I'm practicing sketching but I'm not good at it yet.

I've been getting art books. I have that marvel one. Drawing figures and faces in 3d is going to take some work though. I have some other ones on comic books coming in the mail this week.

Offline bengo

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Re: [wip][C&C]Woman's Face

Reply #8 on: May 24, 2010, 10:01:15 am
If you want to really get good at art my suggestions would be to grab some other books, some ones that can prep you up and get you to understand what you're doin fully, I will PM you links to some useful books and recommend some books you'll have to buy paperback/hardcover but are worth it. The main thing you gotta do is practice, practice, practice, to get good at the human form, the best thing would be to practice drawing still life, hours and hours of that, since most still life is just simple shapes, it helps a lot since well, everything when broken down is just simple shapes and since the human form is just A LOT of shapes, well, definitely helps when you can tackle down an individual simple shape.

You may want to pick up a sketch book and some pencils (I recommend 6b, always have a sharpener with you, don't take an eraser because it forces you to think more carefully about what you're doing, if you do want an eraser, only use it for highlights, use it as a tool, not something to poorly erase "mistakes"), start a journal of what you're drawing pretty much, go around and draw from life, do gestures of people, contours of things and people. Another thing you'll want to do is try to get a good grasp on composition and this means making pieces, planning them out, using reference, etc.

Don't just stick yourself to pixel art, really, pixel art is just a medium, it would be so good for you to pick up some paints or soft pastels, anything, coloring pencils even (the artist's kind though, not the cheap cheap stuff), grab an easel, grab some canvases or grab some strong paper you can draw/paint on, go to work on just making things, you will be surprised on how much you improve since you'll be spending hours on each piece, practicing new things, just ensure you're always challenging yourself, always tackling things you struggle with, etc. Right now I can tell you're fairly new to the process but everyone starts out at the bottom, no one magically becomes a great artist over-night, it takes practice and it takes some of your own individual style, which you will develop not at the beginning, but when you begin to grasp everything and see a clearer vision with what you want.

Look even if you're not REALLY serious about it (but it seems like you are, if you're ordering a lot of art books, coming to Pixelation, etc.), its still always better to have a bit of a grasp on what you're doing instead of having no idea and in the end you have a new talent to show off and be proud of.