I notice as I am putting this together that two things basically came out of this. Composition and Line Thickness/thinness are my weakest points, color being a close third. I am too impulsive and whimsical in my art and would benefit from thinking more before I start drawing. I would also benefit from focusing long enough and maintaining enough discipline to add more details/change brush sizes even to simple sketches. I think then my desired results would be much more within my reach.
Also, the two words I kept finding myself saying over and over were “weight” and “harmony.” I think I desire and admire to have the feeling of true depth/mass to my drawings as well as harmony in all aspects of the picture. I need to work on both of these and study more examples.
Sketches
Comics
Line Art
Colors
I am not saying I like the coloring style of these images, but rather the way in which color was utilized. It is my hope to one day learn how to use color so effectively.
Finished Pieces
When I say “Finished Piece” I mean a piece in which the lineart, original sketch (the composition), the colors and the coloring style all come together in just the right way. I would like to learn this type of harmony in my own work, instead of generally feeling that while each quality is good they don’t all work well together.
Finalized Designs
One of the things I always find really inspiring are finalized character designs. I know I haven’t learned to simplify effectively like this. All of these designs are very simple so as to enable animation yet are distinct and communicate largely everything you’d need to know about that character on first glance. I really, really want to learn this skill. “What can I eliminate and still have all the essence of “X” character still be there?”







































































































So much good stuff! This has made me realize that for as much as I latched onto anime/manga style (and am trying to pull away from it) you’ve actually “consumed” a lot more of it than I have. I think you just consume more in general because you’re better at reading and watching things than I am.
I was thinking, since it might be hard for either of us to incorporate ALL of the things we like into our styles, that it might be fun to periodically do “style studies” on just one pic in our respective style boards. I tried doing this the other day and it was really fun!