May 23 Birthday Special

[Tom Flapwell]

Very nice, O ye who are exactly two years my junior.

[CameronCN]

Well I did post this a long time ago around noon where I live and had no replies for like 8 hours or so. Kinda is demoralizing after that long.

Don't sweat it. You realize it is possible to post on a place that gets a thousand visitors a day and still not get a reply? I did that about the same time you started this post. It's nothing to worry about. Sometimes people just don't have anything to say.

(In case you were wondering what I was talking about, I made my 3rd post on the Talk About Comics Blog today. I post there sometimes. I also have a personal blog, of course, only one of whose 22 posts has gotten any comments in its history. As I said, no biggie.)

[Muninn]

I don't think I could ever go to art school. Too much rules and traditions on the one subject that's not supposed to be bound by them. This isn't anything against you Donnie, if you take it that way.

Sure, I work within a structure when I draw or write, but the boundaries are very far apart. I just follow the rule - it's looks good to me drawn/written this way, I like it. When I draw I play around a little with the shadows, the overall composition, the colours, the background, everything really, to suit what I want them to look like.

Funny that I say this after having said in another thread here that I like realistic art over more abstract stuff. But that's because realistic art to me is how I want to draw.

[Chris]

Really interesting and helpful article, Donnie.

But in the end....Its up to the artist because every people have there own style on how to draw stuff.

[VenM2]

Not true. Part one relates to all art and is judged as such. You can't really escape it, however you can vary it and do interesting stuff with it to make an interesting result. You can make any kind of drawing and what not but it would still be judged by the elements and principles of design no matter what. So basically to become your 'style' you must develop your own way to use these principles. This has little less to do with actual drawing and more to do with layout. For the drawing part if you, say, load up Avery with criss crossing stripes that are complementary colors and give him pants that are plain and oppose the shirt color it won't look too good to the eye per say.

As for part 2, this is a very basic method. In fact it is so basic that it can broadly relate to any drawing, even still lives. Now by 'style' more or less means how they do this or how the vary it. The boundary is used by many past artists to construct the composition and develop the scene. Using simple shapes like lines or gestures gets a basic pose or posture down. Then it is up to your style on how you finish it more or less. In the end this is basic all round drawing. People can completely ignore every step except for the last 2 and just draw something but it can get frustrating because some proportions may be out of wack or the pose is unusual.

For me these steps aren't a style, it is a procedure. My style is a sort of combo of DCS and my naturalism drawing. I tend to draw Ozy and Millie in a somewhat natural proportion meaning their heads are smaller, legs longer, arms longer to better match natural proportion.

EDIT:
I just realized a good example. In today's sketch of Avery he has been given a striped shirt. That is a good choice since the stripes unifies with his tail and makes it better. The striped shirt is a prime choice for a better image.