About lines and illustrations...
2yr
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Hello everybody! Happy New Year! It's been a long time since I've posted anything here, because I've been busy with the animation course...
Well... Today I come with a request for advice/help from you. I know this platform as the only place I can ask without getting bad judgment (as happens a lot on Twitter, Facebook, etc.).
And what I wanted to talk about was drawing. More precisely about lineart. Drawings made with lineart are professional or not?
I say this because I see many good artists in the games area who make incredible drawings without even using a lineart, examples are Yan Kyohara and Ray Lederer who are my inspirations, in addition to Proko himself.
I've been trying to get back to drawing lately, but I feel like I'll never reach the level these artists are at. I'm always using lines and, as much as I more or less know the techniques of light and shadow, it never seems to work. My sister always says that her drawings don't look professional if you don't remove the lineart, and I ended up getting that in my head... So I wanted your help. I wanted an honest opinion. I really want to work in the games area and I want to know how to illustrate how these guys...
Anyway... I hope I didn't leave the focus of the conversation too much and wrote a lot (ADHD interferes with my life too much).
I'll leave the drawing I've been doing lately and two drawings by the artists I mentioned :'D
2yr
I can refer you to Bill Perkins who explains styles and the language of Art in the best possible way. if you search his name you'll find his online courses.
2yr
Hi @Mary Santos. I don’t think you should worry about one type of technique being inherently superior to another. Working with line only is neither more nor less professional than using other techniques, even in the gaming industry. What matters is the quality of your work (cheesy, but true). Also, remember that it is easy to forget that professional illustrators work differently than those starting out. Just because we don’t see lines in the end result doesn’t mean these artists 1) don’t use lines in their process or 2) that they don’t apply the understanding of form and perspective that comes with knowing how to make good lines.
Whether your line art is meant to be the entire illustration, a part of it, or not show at all is mostly a matter of style. You’ll find plenty of professional artists that do any or all of these. There are some wonderful digital illustrations used for game art, but that doesn’t leave out line art entirely – just take a look at Hollow Knight, the Tell Tale games, Borderlands, etc.
I’m not sure if this is part of your question, but here it goes: Your drawing is of a similar style to what a friend of mine used to do. In her case, whenever she made her drawings neater by erasing the sketch underneath, it became flatter and much less interesting, so she left the sketch in but was never happy because her drawings were never as neat as she wanted. It turned out that her final lines –the ones that were not meant as sketches– did not show what they were meant to show: shape, light, a change of material, movement, etc. The sketch lines carried most of the weight, so erasing them erased the drawing’s most important information. Shape, light, etc. are things shown in the illustration examples you shared, but they are solved in a painterly-language, not in a line-language. Line art can show these things as well, but you have to solve them differently with line than you would with brushes and color.
If you are interested in improving your line art, I recommend taking a look at what fine artists or comic artists do. Their lines aren’t always meant to do the same things, but the crucial idea is that they know what they are doing with their lines and why. It’s great to have digital paintings as your end goal, but don’t underestimate line work!
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2yr
@Diana Mata this is something I noticed when I was doing animation exercises. A teacher of mine once said that the sketch is the most beautiful part of an animation, because that's where we look for the movement...
I particularly love sketches and everything that sounds very traditional, but I was always conflicted when seeing the big ones game artists make arts that are practically impossible for me to reproduce...
I loved the artist I was recommended, he has what I was looking for and what I like... I think I'm full of paradigms in my head, because I dream of the games industry, but I'm always afraid of not being called because my art doesn't sound "professional"
but thanks a lot! I knew I would get great advice around here!
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2yr
Okay, just because your favorite artist does it a certain way, doesn’t mean that’s why their art is good. There are plenty of amazing artist in the game industry that use line art. Do yourself a favor and look at an artist named John Grello, very few people can draw or paint like that guy.
if you do you really great, then your stuff will look professional, line or not.
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2yr
Thank you so much! I didn't know he existed, he really is an amazing artist!
I hope to reach his level someday :')