Jump to content

Sock Cottonwell's System Sketchbook


Sock

Recommended Posts

Simple_Sheryl_Dress_Sketch_D.png

 

Earlier in the thread, I mentioned that Sheryl wanted me to draw an image of her with her school dress on, using the "bowling pin" drawing I did of her as a base. The above is a sketch of said image.

 

I wanted to get more of Sheryl's personality in to the drawing, as I felt the last one was pretty lacking on that front (Not surprising, given the purpose of that scribble). So while I still used that drawing as a base, I changed up the way it was posed, and her expression on it. I still think it need some heavy edits before I run it through Inkscape, though.

 

Update:

I tweaked the sketch a bit more, mainly in the face area, and I think it was the one place that was bugging me the most. I lowered the eyes and brought them in a little more, and I think it results in a better look.

 

Update: 12.24.2015

 

I'm continuing work on the piece, and have come to a point where I'm satisfied enough that I can start vectoring it. The big issue for me were the arms. While there was a nice deal of emotion in the gesture, I could not deny the fact that it didn't look right to me. I found that the arms were too short for the position it was in, and that the thumbs would not be showing at that angle.

 

The face was something that I actually did really like about the previous edition. While I thought it would be not to have Sheryl's eyes completely open while drawing, I see that in comparing the two drawings, come emotion was lost with the change. I do like both version, though, and will likely make and edit with both types of faces.

 

 

Peace

Sock Cottonwell's

Sketchbook, Journal, and Ask thread.

Peace

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 101
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

[align=center]Sheryl_Dress_Vector.png

 

Fill image here.[/align]

 

Alright, this image is good and done. I may play with it a bit more later one, but for the time being, I think this is a nice place to shelve it. Much of the process of vectoring this one was learning more about some of the other features vector programs have for making your drawing process easier, which I didn't really take advantage of, like the paint bucket tool, heh. But it's a nice way to familiarize myself more with the software. It reminds me that I'd like to do some more traditional media work too, because at this point I do all my work digitally. Digital appealed initially because I lack a scanner, so I can't really upload my sketches easily, but I know that using it exclusively could turn in to a crutch of sorts.

 

Sheryl herself seemed quite happy with the resulting image, jumping for joy when I showed it to her. She surfaced a bit, though, and that's a quirk I've been trying to get the girls to work out of. I don't do possession and stuff, but there are points when the girls will say something, or have a strong emotion, that will manifest via my body behaving as they would. This is odd when alone, but makes communicating with them in public somewhat risky, as I don't want someone noticing my voice suddenly increasing in pitch, and my mannerism becoming exaggeratedly feminine. So, when this happens, I pause for a bit, and tell them that they're coming through, and ask them to communicate again through a different fashion. It'll take some time, and I'm still experimenting, but I feel it will do some good.

 

I actually printed a few of these one day. I was pleased how they turned out in print, though I only did it on plain printer paper. Maybe one day, I'll print these out and use them, thought more likely I'll put them in a book.

 

Peace.

Sock Cottonwell's

Sketchbook, Journal, and Ask thread.

Peace

Link to comment
Share on other sites

How long does it typically take you to start and finish one of these? I absolutely love your style.

 

I haven't been keeping track of that, really. But, I can confirm that it takes a lot of time, but mainly because I tend to be rather inefficient with the time I use, something I've been trying to work on. I tend to spend a lot of time polishing and correcting details in the pieces I make, especially when concerning the linework, though this is mainly an issue of preparing it for easy transfer to Inkscape.

 

I made the last drawing over the past week on and off, and taking in to account how many times I redrew things, and obsessed over details in the line work, I think it took around 6 hours overall, a number I'm rather embarrassed about being honest. I also tend to stop a lot during work, and get easily distracted as well, so I'm sure a chunk of that time was actually due to that. I'll start timing myself soon, so I can get a better gauge of how much time I take. I'll definitely be trying to speed myself up, both through simple practice, and through optimizing my technique.

 

Thank you for your reply.

Sock Cottonwell's

Sketchbook, Journal, and Ask thread.

Peace

Link to comment
Share on other sites

After doing the last few vectors I did, I looked back at the first one I did, and found it lacking in comparison to the others. There were things in the image that I found did not look right, and could be improved, so I went to further polishing it up, and polishing, and polishing, and experimenting, until I got this:

 

[align=center]Simple_Sherylvrd.png

 

Full image here.[/align]

 

I did a good deal of work on this one, from redrawing parts of the base drawing, to reworking the lines, to doing far more shading, to using gradients along with the cel shading, something that came to mind when commenting on one of Steek's drawings.

 

Unfortunately, I didn't record any notes on the progress, but I guess it's just a sign that I got in to a "zone" of sorts when working. I can say that doing rendering like this in Inkscape is a new thing for me, and I'm happy to have experimented in this way.

 

This isn't the only thing I'm working on at the moment. Another one of my girls, and a friend to Sheryl asked me to draw her, as well. While I haven't been able to spend much time with her at all, I'm also happy to answer request like that from my thought folk. It helps that I wanted to have a drawing of her on hand, anyway.

 

Marilyn.png

 

She's not the only one to ask either, Hana asked for me to redesign her clothing, so I'll be working on that son, as well. The infolk give me a good amount of opportunities to practice my craft, which I'm happy with.

 

I've been asked occasionally to do a request, or if I did commissions for others. It is something that comes to mind sometimes, but I don't feel quite up to it yet. I want to speed up my drawing speed a little, and also ensure that my schedule will permit doing more work for others. I don't want to end up in a position where something unexpected spring up, and causes me to slow down on my work, I don't like keeping customers waiting.

 

Peace

Sock Cottonwell's

Sketchbook, Journal, and Ask thread.

Peace

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've thought about this, I think I know the perfect character for you to draw.

Frisk from Undertale. Your art style just really reminds me of them.

"Try to get a better understanding of things before making your judgement." -Khan, Metro 2033

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've thought about this, I think I know the perfect character for you to draw.

Frisk from Undertale. Your art style just really reminds me of them.

 

Heh, that reminds me that I never really got to finishing Undertale. Once I downloaded Dustforce, it pretty much devoured my gaming time, to where I sometimes forget I ever bought Undertale. Which is a shame since the bit I've played of it is quite fine indeed. The hitbox is something I have to get used to, though, since I'm more accustomed to tiny hitboxes in games like Danmaku Death, or Blue Wish Resurrection.

 

As far as art direction goes, I likely could do a fine Frisk, as he/she's a very simple design, though I'd likely render them as being minuscule and dwarf-like. I'd also probably start swapping their clothing and declaring the result as some other silent protagonist, like Madotsuki, or Gorden Freemen, heheh.

 

Thank you for your comment, Brassow.

Sock Cottonwell's

Sketchbook, Journal, and Ask thread.

Peace

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes!, the magic of shades, those really improve the please of every single image, the more details with the deep of the draw the better. Those linear gradients goes really well with your style, nice catch there. But be careful to not over using them in big textures that aren't suppose to be flat, like hair, when the light comes from some angle the texture will look like round plastic. It happened to me a while ago so I dropped entirely coloring my images until I figure how to avoid entirely gradients (and straight opacity and clipping masks). Maybe you are entirely fine with them? That's totally good

Keep the good work and never stop playing with the tools!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes!, the magic of shades, those really improve the please of every single image, the more details with the deep of the draw the better. Those linear gradients goes really well with your style, nice catch there. But be careful to not over using them in big textures that aren't suppose to be flat, like hair, when the light comes from some angle the texture will look like round plastic. It happened to me a while ago so I dropped entirely coloring my images until I figure how to avoid entirely gradients (and straight opacity and clipping masks). Maybe you are entirely fine with them? That's totally good

Keep the good work and never stop playing with the tools!

 

Haha, yes, shading can definitely make an image pop out a lot, and being that I usually do my stuff here flat, it causes this piece to stand out a lot more. I used to shade my stuff a lot all the time, usually in the form of block shading for each level of shadow, but I haven't been doing that much at all in later times, as illustrated in this thread.

 

You're definitely not wrong about the pitfall of using gradients incorrectly, it can really wreck an image if one's not careful with it. While this wasn't directly on my mind, I DID take care to make sure something like that didn't happen, which I can illustrate in the below image.

 

Simple_Shery_Example.png

 

I blocked off the gradient bits, much like the cell shading bits, so that it would not span across the entire object. This way emphasis is placed on the cell shaded shadows, without having a huge gradient spanning across the image, which wouldn't look right at all.

 

I don't think I'm going to be giving the other pictures in this thread the same treatment yet, as the process is rather time consuming, but I may do so in the future, or at least make more pictures with this sort of shading.

 

Peace.

Sock Cottonwell's

Sketchbook, Journal, and Ask thread.

Peace

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I decided to spice up my wallpapers a little bit last night during work. When I first made them I wanted to have something very simple and functional, so that I wouldn't have to spend too time on them. As a result, I went with a gradient + sidebar convention that you see in this thread mostly. It worked pretty well, and I enjoyed looking at them, but I also felt they were a bit TOO sparse. I wasn't sure what to do, so I just played a bit with them, while working on another drawing on and off.

 

At first, I went with more abstract shapes and patterns, putting objects in places that I thought looked good. That is, until I went and worked on Glady's wall, where I wnet with a cloud theme. I liked that lanscape-like image a lot, enough that I went to edit Midori's wall in to a landscape as well. The others are still abstract, though.

 

[align=center]Gladys_Wall2.png

 

Mido_Wall3.png

 

UTomodachi_Wall2.png

 

Sheryl_Wall2.png

 

Sheryl_Dress_Wall2.png [/align]

 

The two Sheryl walss are still largely the same, but I have some idea to differenciate them. I'll edit this post and put the end result in later.

 

Peace.

Sock Cottonwell's

Sketchbook, Journal, and Ask thread.

Peace

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...