My failed anime drawing

[magister_negi_magi]

Re: My failed anime drawing

Awesome pics Negi *_* it's a shame your scanner doesn't do them justice. My old scanner was a lot better at picking up pencil lines at high quality, but it broke randomly and now I'm stuck with my little freebie. It makes my lines look grainy (especially a problem with smaller drawings, which tend to be most of them :/ ). But still, it seems to be a lot better than that thing you've got. I recommend shopping around for something else too...

Wait, you just BOUGHT that scanner? o_O That shouldn't be happening then, unless you bought an old one off ebay or something. What model is it?

You might be missing some drivers which could cause the thing to hate you. Also, try playing around with the settings before you scan. If it's doing crap like scanning it as 1x1 it's probably a deeper issue, but it still couldn't hurt to try to get the settings better. I tend to scan at 600dpi (the highest my scanner goes without faking it) and adjust the brightness settings. For some reason it seems to like lowering the midtone values and it helps to bring that back up... and then after it's scanned I adjust Levels and whatnot in Photoshop a bit.

The scanner is a LexMark X5150. I can scan at 300dpi maximum. I bought it when I saw a particular sticky for a particular H-game that I wanted to help with, but by the time I could get the damned thing to work, they'd already picked staff. Sucks. Delete this if it isn't worksafe.

[SethSquall]

Re: My failed anime drawing

Awesome picture Negi. It's like Jamuko said though it's a shame the scanner doesn't help.

I might go look at some scanners today. I've always needed one anyway, I'm going to need one for college pretty soon anyway. Anyone know what to look for in a scanner?

I'm just like this too. :/ I don't like drawing from reference... it feels like cheating somehow, so it's not as rewarding and I end up feeling like I shouldn't show it to anyone (despite logically knowing that people do it all the time).

Those "How to Draw Manga" books seem useful, but they never really helped me personally. I just couldn't learn from the typical methods of explaining proportion and whatnot... (plus, to be perfectly honest, I didn't care for the art styles of most of those books ^^; just personal preference though). I find it a lot more helpful to find artists I admire and obsess over their works for a while.

Yea, I know a few people who find an anime picture and just copy the proportions and the pose and stuff and just change the features like eyes and clothes and that. I think that's cheating lol, never tell them that though, they go through the roof. I mean it's a good way to get the proportions right and that but I don't think it's all your work. I prefer to draw from my head only when it comes to cartoons and anime etc (it's all from my imagination which I'm sure is fueled by all the anime and games I watch/play). I've always been like that. I do things through trial and error, look where I fail and experiment further with it.

[jamuko]

Re: My failed anime drawing

Hmm, I just looked up your scanner, and it doesn't look that bad at all. You should be able to get some better use out of it.

Here's the page for it: http://www.lexmark.com/lexmark/produ...0.html?tabId=1

They have driver downloads which is probably likely to solve your problem, but if not there's technical support too.

Speaking of H games, I'm part of a new group making non-H visual novels. =D Our first short project is almost complete, and the next, bigger one is in the planning stages.


Edit:

I might go look at some scanners today. I've always needed one anyway, I'm going to need one for college pretty soon anyway. Anyone know what to look for in a scanner?

The biggest annoyance I've noticed is how they report the scanner's capable dpi in the stats. There is a "real" dpi and another one (I forgot the term for it) that is much higher, which looks good on the box, but is basically useless. All those really high ones do is scan at the highest "real" dpi and then blow it up with poor quality like you could do yourself in any image editing program. Sometimes it's a pain to decipher what the actual quality is of the thing.

And I totally agree with you on the whole reference thing. x.x Also, I think it's probably better learning this way... you come to more of your own conclusions on how to do things rather than copying how someone else did it, and your style develops more personally this way too.

[magister_negi_magi]

Re: My failed anime drawing

Hmm, I just looked up your scanner, and it doesn't look that bad at all. You should be able to get some better use out of it.

Here's the page for it: http://www.lexmark.com/lexmark/produ...0.html?tabId=1

They have driver downloads which is probably likely to solve your problem, but if not there's technical support too.

I installed those drivers, and I think the overall quality increased, but it's definitely not something huge. Still, better than what came out before.

[Moogy]

Re: My failed anime drawing

Speaking of H games, I'm part of a new group making non-H visual novels. =D Our first short project is almost complete, and the next, bigger one is in the planning stages.

This topic is relevant to my interests, as I am a fan of VNs.

Mind PMing me information or something? All of the OEL VNs I've played (admittedly, this number is in the single digits) have been pretty terrible, but eh.

Lots of neat VN translation projects going on right now... I shouldn't talk about those, though.

[the_unda_doggz]

Re: My failed anime drawing

Uinbanned For A Second!

[jamuko]

Re: My failed anime drawing

This topic is relevant to my interests, as I am a fan of VNs.

Mind PMing me information or something? All of the OEL VNs I've played (admittedly, this number is in the single digits) have been pretty terrible, but eh.

Lots of neat VN translation projects going on right now... I shouldn't talk about those, though.

Sure. =D I'm not at my own computer right now so it'd be easier for me to get back to you later today, but I'll be sure to do so. (If anyone else is interested, lemme know too.)

I'm the character profile artist, meaning I design the look of the characters based on the story and handle the main pics of them (but not the special CG scenes that appear now and then). I'm not sure what the technical terms for those are but we've just been calling them "profiles" and "CGs".

Anyway, the author of the story is a big fan of AIR and Kanon, so the spirit of his writing is in a similar vein. We're using Ren'Py, and while I admit we are an amateur group, we're doing our best to make sure it doesn't suck.

Also, our music people backed out on us, so we were forced to use common license public works. :/ If anyone happens to like writing atmospheric instrumental music... we wouldn't exactly be opposed to hearing from you..... XD

More later.

[SethSquall]

Re: My failed anime drawing

What price range should I go for with a scanner. Obviously the more expensive the better half the time but whats the lowest price you'd go and be confident the scanner wouldn't be crap. I'm looking at roughly $75/$80 scanners right now.

Ps drawing lol.

[lord_carbo]

Re: My failed anime drawing

So I heard Anime sucks lolo

I pretended like I was on LSD when doing these:





These were for specific people, especially the first:

[Hwscottsmcgram]

Re: My failed anime drawing

good drawings but not really really anime enough

[lord_carbo]

Re: My failed anime drawing

Psh, screw pseudo-Anime. The biggest mistake most artists makes is taking up trends before learning real human proportions and just drawing their own style. It's really a drawback (pun not intended). I went into a drawing slump over the past half-year because of that, and I'm just starting to get out of it.

[jamuko]

Re: My failed anime drawing

Carbo's right :/

But I can't help myself. I love anime style, and that's really all that inspires me to draw. I think I'll end up going backwards... once I'm satisfied with my ability to draw all anime-like, I'll start to diverge more. But for now, I really don't have much motivation to create something other than my own subset of style within the anime category.

[lord_carbo]

Re: My failed anime drawing

jamuko, trust me when I say this, but if you try to diverge after drawing Anime and nothing but, your talents for drawing will seemingly just disappear everywhere. It's so hard to work backwards and do as good as you used to at the same time. It's kinda like learning art all over again because real human proportions works as a foundation for Anime--not the other way around.

Then again, I did it really quickly and just decided to go cold-turkey no-more-pseudo-Anime. Maybe if you take it real slow while still drawing Anime at the same time you won't do too bad.

[jamuko]

Re: My failed anime drawing

Well, I've been drawing for a long time... I think I kind of do it all at once. I don't draw anime and nothing but, but it's true that it's all I care to pursue to a higher level. I study everything I see, pretty much, and it all factors in. It's just that I have no will to complete anything to a high level that isn't something I really love the look of, and as of now, that's anime. I think I'd lose interest in art if I had to suddenly abandon that so quickly. :/


PS I like that second pic you posted a lot.

[jewpinthethird]

Re: My failed anime drawing

Psh, screw pseudo-Anime. The biggest mistake most artists makes is taking up trends before learning real human proportions and just drawing their own style. It's really a drawback (pun not intended). I went into a drawing slump over the past half-year because of that, and I'm just starting to get out of it.

I may sound like a dick for saying this, but if you can't draw anything outside the realm of anime you aren't an artist. (And to clear up any confusion, I am not talking to anyone in particular).

The title "Artist" is something that is earned and I have no respect for self proclaimed "artists." I dont know why, it's just a pet peeve of mine. Da Vinci was an artist. Picasso was an artist. Van Gogh was an artist. Magritte was an artist. They dedicated their lives to crafting their skill and if you think you can compete with these top dogs, then by all means, call yourself an artist. If not, then stand down and shut up and keep drawing.