[No0bi3man]

Not to change the subject or anything but uh does anyone ever wonder if there is gonna be another spiderman?.....

[laseredd]

*Struck with Awe*
I'll take a shot at it, I doubt it'll be as good as yours though..

[we took four]

NICE!!

[Griatch]

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I'll take a shot at it, I doubt it'll be as good as yours though..

Cool to hear you're trying it out. Looking forward to seeing a result ! Put it up here and I'll comment!
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[hrlax14]

Dude you are so amazing at wat u do. It's awsome how long hav you been doing this??

[Pixkid]

This is insane!!!!! I can't do this! but, you can sure use gimp better than I can. :w:

[dumble]

This is amazing!
Your are an artist :h:

[Griatch]

@hrlax 4

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It's awsome how long hav you been doing this??

I've done all my art in GIMP for the last 3-4 years or so.
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[Emi]

OMG.
That is some awesome art!

[KikiMooded]

wow..so complicated..im still learning...

[Griatch]

Thanks for the comments, people. Looking forward to more people trying this out.
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[Siggy_Wiggy]

Yeah, good job. I need to get a graphic tablet. But I don't want to get cheap one that doesn't give you much space to work with. How much did you pay for yours?

[Griatch]

@Siggy Wiggy

Size of tablet has no importance whatsoever. That's what GIMP:s zoom function is for. If you want good quality you should rather go for the right brand. I usually recommend getting the smallest-size (and thus cheapest) Wacom tablet, usually the Wacom Graphire or equivalent. The Wacom's are a little more expensive than other brands, but they are also usually much better. The Graphire is an excellent tablet with high quality that you can use for a long time. Wacom website
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[SAMUSLOVER213]

This is a great tutorial. Very helpful. :)

[Griatch]

@SAMUSLOVER213

Cool, thanks! Good to hear it was useful to you. :-)
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[JugeCorwin]

okay Griatch,
now that my "futuristic city" is almost finished,
i'll try this new challenge :w:

[coveyzilla]

So, I've recently bought a graphics tablet and stumbled upon this forum and this tutorial while looking for some techniques to try to get me started using GIMP more than at the ultra-casual level I had before.

Here's my attempt:

I know the skin could be much improved - since I've done this I've learned a bit more how to go about skin and shading and facial structure - or at least I've found a technique for those things that suits me somewhat better. Also I'm not at all happy with the front foot, really...it needs more perspective. But I'm pretty happy with it, for being one of my first drawing endeavors in GIMP.

[Griatch]

@coveyzilla

Welcome to GIMPtalk! Glad you found some use of my tutorial!

Good job on this, it's very good expecially considering it's one of your first works. My favourite bit is her pose; it looks very relaxed yet confident. Espcialy her right hand rests very convincingly on the staff and the hand seems anatomically correct; that's not easy to do, most impressive.

As you yourself point out the foot is not quite in proper persective; it's angled inward too much and it would probably befit her pose better had the foot simply rested flat on the floor, as it is it looks lifted up. Overall the angle of the leg is a bit off, the knee would be a bit more bent for her to keep her balance properly; even though she could stand like that, it does look like she just kicked a football off the screen and is a bit off balance at this moment.

Her body works fine; of course any woman would die to have that that waist, bust and hip, but it's still pretty realistic I'd say. Also you have worked with a bit of shine and structure in her clothes -- very nice! A suggestion is to take a look at the level of detail you have used in the face and compare that to the rest of her body and outfit. A very common thing is to spend a lot of time and effort making her face (that's one of the trickier bits after all) -- working with small brushes and high detail, yet using large brushes and wider strokes to do the clothing. Of course clothes don't have as much features an structure as the face, but you should be careful to at least bring it to the same level of sharpness. As it is the clothes are a little blurry compared to the face. The face works well though, in itself. I like that nose! Comes across very well.

Final bit is of course shadowing and light, but that will come, it's a first attempt after all.

It's a great first try I think. Character designing is a wonderful way of learning all sorts of graphical techniques. I have only given you some critique to help you on the way, to try new things next time. I'd love to see more work of yours.

If you're interested in other ways of drawing/sketching characters, I can recommend some other tutorials o look at my Advanced airbrush tutorial (teaches skin painting), Portrait tutorial and Character sketching tutorial. You can find them all linked from here:
http://griatch-art.d...urnal/12273509/

Thanks again for trying the tutorial, and hope you enjoy GIMPtalk. I'll put your image up at the top for everyone to be impressed by. :-)
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[coveyzilla]

:) I love getting critique.

Thanks for all the comments! They're certainly helpful, and I appreciate them. I don't have much to say in response, except that I totally realize the somewhat-unrealistic proportions. :P One of the first places I started to learn anatomy was a fashion design class, so my ability to draw people that don't look like fashion models is somewhat impaired. o_o

Also, what specifically would you suggest to help match the sharpness of the clothes to that of the face? Just sharper outlines on the clothes?

[Griatch]

Without critique it's very hard to improve, therefore I try to give at least some every time I comment on artwork; especially in my tutorial threads, since they are meant to help people learn things after all ;-)

Retaining the focus in an image is much about contrasts. The outlines of the character will do well of being darker compared to the background. Note that I'm not suggesting a black comic-like line around the entire image (even though that fits well in some styles); but rather to subtly darken the outer edges. Do that on a separate layer -- apply a darker version of the underlying colour (not black unless you really know what you're doing) along the edge and use the smudge tool (at 50% opacity) to drag this dark colour inward a bit from the edges and create a smooth gradient (that should ideally also follow folds and wrinkles where appropriate). Setting that layer to multiply or burn mode will make the effect more interesting. Note that these are not really enviromental shadows per se -- only tricks to enhance contrast. Shadows will require an analysis of the light sources in the image.

Adding another layer in normal mode and using it to apply highlights is optional but another way to much improve looks with simple means. Once again I can recommend a bunch of my tutorials where all this is covered quite extensively.

In the end there is no one way to do this, of course. I personally prefer better contrasts and shadows, but others do just fine without. It all depends on what kind of style one wants to follow.
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