Workshop participation thread for Demosthenes

Introducing myself:

I'm a programmer in a software company whose only client is a broker. Since I was a kid, I always was a computer game and comics fan. Because of this addiction to comic books I started to produce a webcomic, Os Putos (it's written in Portuguese). I did the webcomic both to see if I could do it and because I wanted to learn how to draw better. Before this experience I hadn't draw since High School (in visual arts class) so it resulted in these picasso-style first strips:





Later I produced these, which were better, but not great:





All these strips were hand-drawn, with inking and coloring done digitally.

So, my expectations for this workshop is to learn how to do realistic drawing, which is something I always wanted to do, and I also hope it improves my cartooning.

Ok, first the two objects, a teddy bear and a wooden puzzle. In the first image I just did a quick sketch:



In this image I tried to draw every line with a single stroke:



I took more time in this last one, did some shading too:



The image below is the magazine cover I used for reference:



Below is my drawing of it. I was bored towards the end, so I didn't draw all the ship's occupants, and the lettering of the magazine title is very rushed.

You did a good job, but I think we haven't provided enough guidance for some of you. Shading comes later, period. If you want, you can shade now, but if your drawing doesn't have solid geometry, shading just muddies the picture - it makes it harder to understand the shapes of the objects. And without a sound understanding of how to shade effectively to suggest form, the final result ends up looking flat and somewhat lifeless.

Your shaded teddy bear and wooden puzzle has the problem that the lines in the drawing don't sufficiently convey the form, particularly of the puzzle (which is intricate; can you post a picture of the object?), and then the shading makes things worse.

The most fundamental technique in shading is called hatching: it is the drawing of evenly spaced, parallel lines (straight or curved) to suggest the casting of shadow on an area. The area to be hatched is defined by the shape of the object; if you are drawing from a picture or object, look carefully at how light plays across the surface.

Words can only get us so far. If you can, post a picture of the teddy bear and puzzle, and then I or Yuri can provide illustrative corrections.


Nice comic, though I can't read the story. [smile]

Thanks for your input, here is a picture of the teddy bear and puzzle, although not in the position I made the drawing upon:

Okay, I did a drawing of the teddybear and puzzle.



The first thing you will notice is that my objects are not outlined by single lines, but that I used several "sketchy" lines to build up the sense of shape. For the puzzle I first drew a ball ( a circle), then built up the individual pieces and erased the portions of the circle that were effectively "cut out." I did the entire drawing in outlines only first, before starting to shade.

For shading, I pretty much exclusively use hatching. Looking carefully at the reference object, you first draw a faint outline of an area that is in shadow, then you fill that area with evenly spaced parallel lines or curves to give the impression of darkness. The closer together and darker the lines are, the more intense the shadow. For curved objects, the shadow increases as you approach the edges, so the hatch lines grow more closely spaced (see the top-right corner of the puzzle). Because the puzzle is a wooden object, in some areas rather than shading I elected to draw the wood grain.

Over the course of the workshop we will get to all of these areas, and I think Yuri plans for us to cover color as well. The most important thing for you at this stage is learning to relax when you draw, and not be too concerned with producing a perfect image immediately. Use as many lines as you wish, then once you're happy with the overall shape, erase and refine.

Good start.

Thanks for the reply, your drawing does give a better sense of volume. I guess I'll try to improve my lines first and my shading later.

On the self-portrait your chin is a little to the left of where it should be. Also the right sholder seems to be a little high, and I think the entire picture is streached a little wide. It can be hard to get the horizontal proportions to match up with the verticle ones sometime. You can use you pencil to measure and compare the sizes of different things, like you can compare the head height to the head width.