Edit: Lemmy is a lot more helpful and supportive than Reddit could ever be. Thank you all for the advice. I really can use it.
Very nice, if I may offer some advice, a fun exercise I used to do that might be helpful at this point in your journey, texture balls!!
If you can isolate textures and apply them anywhere you can really put your art to the next level, a strong metallic texture on the beak, for instance, would have a strong, simple, contrast, drawing the eye to that point and letting the feathery breast and scale like bird skin really pop
Also I just think they’re neat
Thank you. I appreciate it.
You have the common outline everything problem. That works for really basic comics and stick figures. You can even elevate it like manga and other graphic novels. But that stroke layer is often just that. You really need to focus on what your tool is and the render intent.
The beak looks really weird… So do the eyes.
Sadly, your not even keeping the grain of the feathers.
Focus on the brightness and contrast. Don’t outline. Your using a multiplicative medium. Draw the shadows. Sometimes instead of gradients you can use strokes.
Or you could use an additive (digital) medium.
If you have light colored pens that can brighten, then you can maybe use that for highlights. Otherwise you need to let the paper shine through.
Like the feet are another area where you’re outlining instead of ‘painting the darkness’. Realize traditional media is subtractive. Things just get darker and darker and it’s often hard to remove than do less. So feel the darkness if you’re doing art this way. Blend those shadows into the canvas. Playfully, lightly if you want realism. Still focus on those dark areas. Illuminate the highlights by the abscence of pigment.
Keep improving. Practice is everything. Nobody is born knowing artistic techniques.
This is the advice I came to give.
I saw Jim Lee use a white out pen to solve for this at Fan Expo years ago and it blew my mind. He drew like you did and then got highlights and shape back with it. Now when drawing or painting I’ll use a similar tactic. Might be worth considering.
Thank you. Mostly I just use the image as a guide. I never want to copy line for line the contour of the photo. I just need it to give me an idea of what the bird would look .like. the beak being odd is intentional. I am sorry it wasn’t obvious I wanted to exaggerate everything. But thank you for the advice. Birds are my current focus and my current weakness. They always come out weird.
When talking about the eye you need to actually know what you’re suggesting an improvement to:
The Composition Stage - and “the gesture” of your drawing.
Part of a stumbling block for drawing at the level we’re on (yes I’m stuck here to) - is we’re still not spending any effort on penciling in the gesture, the perspective, the composition - THEN drawing over it.
You and I are still “drawing to copy” and producing scratchy art by duplication of what we see, rather than working on gesture and composition to convey something.
P.S If you ever want to do digital art, can recommend a cheap passive capacity stylus (under $10 on Aliexpress, works on all mobile digital devices) and infinite painter or krita which are free.
Thank you. But currently I only use Procreate on an iPad.
Good job!
I think the main issue here is the picture you have chosen is way too difficult for you (right now). The composition and the angle of the shot would give trouble even to more advanced artists. The eyes are not the problem, it’s the perspective that gave you the trouble.
If I were you I would start with pictures that offer less dramatic perspective and practice on those first next time.
I try to challenge myself every once and awhile.
