Welcome to Gaia! ::

I want to be one of the most respected artists around.

Most of you have seen my art and my gallery on DA. What I'd like to know is;

Based on my style and personality, what would you like to see more of?

trufflepig: your post prompted this response but you are not the sole cause of it, please dont take offense to what i have to say or consider it a personal attack requiring some sort of retaliation.


personally, i sort of start to sigh and roll my eyes when i start to see the same advice being given to every one. alot fo times it seem like people aren't even considering the individual in the artwork.

"go to www.DRAWBETTERANATOMY.com and get better please"

"you need to draw things that look real"

"fomg, anime, YOUR FACE stop watching chobits and be a REAL man"

so there are just some of my thoughts.

I'm ******** tired of everybody's ******** no anime mantra. I don't think it's wrong to have a style based on japanese animation. That does even mean huge eyes pink hair, cat ears, and minimal mouths anymore. Being influence by Dragonball Z and being influence by Samurai Champloo and being influenced by Masamune Shiro will produce profoundly different results.

So does this mean that the shitty generic anime art we all hate doesn't exist? it sure as ******** does, but please just stick to hating that, and be honest about what exactly your hating on, because given the flat out diversity and variety existing in japanese animation, i pretty much have to stand firm on me belief that unless you hate animation, you can't hate anime. YOu can hate popular anime, shojou anime, sci-fi anime, low budget anime....but just. yeah.


As for what? i see he has a style based on anime, but it doesn't seem to show me a severe dependance on stylistic short cuts or even worse an unwillingness to learn something else. jesus, he's here asking for ideas of what else to draw right?

Drawing from life is a fantastic way to learn to draw better, but that dont's mean that dawing s**t that looks real makes you a more interesting or better artist. I think it's harder to draw from life and make it successfully stylized. I think What? would benefit from life drawing or a few references to help him over come certain mistakes that are reoccuring. But frankly i really really like his style and thing it's what attracts me, so i'd rather not he switch to drawing realism all the time. I suppose if it were something he did now and then..but even so, just posting it to show he can do it....this is DA...and unless he considers it his portfolio, it's not really necessary.

But if he wants to do something different sure.

he also draws lots of legs and his rendering is not that bad. They look like the shapes they're meant to be?


i think you could try to do what i've been doing (and then not doing) is drawing other types of subjects. Maybe some objects, plants, monsters robots...maybe just different body types and ages. Just to see how solid your skills are in other areas.

Paige, you're so smart. What you said was so great it had to be said twice.

Like New York. Or Bons.

I totally feel the idea of me drawing different things to get my technical juices flowing.

...I'd better stop gassing myself.

I like you guys.

What other ideas do you think would help?

Now for a post that is on-topic.

What?: I've always wanted to see more finished work from you. Every now and then a picture you produce looks like it's a complete work, and I always dig it. However, a lot of the art that you seem to produce seems somewhat abandoned, like if you had just put a couple of more hours on it cleaning it up and making it feel proper finished it'd be awesome.

I do find your anatomy occasionally bizarre, and would suggest that you re-read your anatomical studies. This is sort of a small thing because you've got your foundations down very well and I would not presume to tell you to "learn anatomy", but I'd think maybe you could tighten it up a bit.

Edit: upon closer inspection, this applies mostly to older work, your newer stuff is more natural ans as such you can ignore this bit.


I like your style a lot. I always like to see your work, I dig what you do with color and attitude. I'm a fan of the sexy-but-not-porn vibe you have got in a lot of your work. All I can say on that front is keep it up.

well frankly, for people who have actually gone to the trouble of LEARNING how to draw outside of of anime, being dismissed immediately as an anime artist because you draw big eyes is extremely frustrating.

i get smacked with the anime label all the time, even thought a good deal of my influences aren't even japanese.

and I wholly agree with discouraging people who want to learn to draw from buying how to draw manga books. and i really hate shitty anime art where it's clear the only reference anyone has every used was from a Doujinshi.

But i get really really tired of people who dont really look at a drawing and think about HOW the artist is using the influence, and whether is seems to be postively or negatively before opening their mouths and whining so they can look all anti anime and cool about it.

i don't think it's a matter of style per say, since everyone here @ afg has their own methods and techniques. but i do agree with tightening up your work. i think focusing on one illustration would help you a great deal, and it'd make your pieces look better if you spend a little more time on them. it's a good thing to be able to do quick sketches to get the basic gesture down, but if you wanna be the best it might just come down to repetition. if you're down with doing sketches...then do a whole bunch. fill up sketchbooks, notepads, anything. draw from life, draw from influence, draw from reference. it helps to just do warm ups like that if you want to strengthen your skills in your sketching. it'll make for more solid figures and gestures and it'll help with your basic understanding of sketching. break it down to simple shapes and then build back up to intricate shapes.

as for touching up with your rendering...you'll probably have to spend a lot more time with each piece. maybe take a sketch that you like and lay down some colors. try and finish something. you could start out with flat colors and getting the basic idea of using brushes + layers in photoshop (or whichever program you prefer). take that and start adding some shadows. start out with simple color schemes, and then build up your skills from there. find an artist that you like and see if you can break down their coloring/rendering process and see if that fits you. take techniques that you like and incorporate them into your arsenal. it's similar to doing repetitious tasks like sketching, but it helps a great deal. once you get comfortable with coloring with shadows and highlights, start thinking about reflected light, subsurface scattering, etc.

it's not really a matter of doing it by the books, or being a total purist in one area (anime vs. realism, digital vs. analog, etc) it's more of just rather getting around to doing it, y'know? worry about the labels later. the best place to start would be in the areas you're more comfortable with doing and beefing that up before branching off to different areas. it'll give you the foundation you'll need to be able to level up.

i saw that you liked hoon and juji's work. hoon likes to focus on conceptual as well as compositional aspects. typography and presentation are his strengths, as well as sketching constantly. the last time i met up with him for dinner we got to talking at how he got to where he was now...and a lot of it was just presevering and learning from the artists he admired. might also be a road to consider with someone of your caliber, especially if you want to follow your ambition.

It looks like anything I would have probably said has already been said for me... sweatdrop

To jump on the bandwagon, yes, you should work on having more finished pieces. I really love your style. It's lush.