Character development is crucial, but what if there are aspects of a character that you don't want to explore as revealing it would "ruin the character". Would the solution then be to just obfuscate it to keep it a mystery?
Pic unrelated.
Character development is crucial, but what if there are aspects of a character that you don't want to explore as revealing it would "ruin th...
This image hurts my soul, how the hell do you keep the charm of a sketch after doing lineart? It always feels so sterile.
lineart is basically the skeleton. the nice little smears and imperfections come with coloring, something that many budding traditional artists are too scared to do.
Because the art industry has been gaslit into believing the small shades and blemishes are "errors" that must be corrected instead of being embraced as giving extra character to a drawing.
I've been told its how you draw your lines. Drawing using your full arm instead of your wrist should give you smoother lines. However, I can't draw like that so it fricking sucks everytime i get to the lineart phase
> However, I can't draw like that
Is your shoulder broken?
I draw using my wrist and not my entire arm. I just thought that was normally how artist drew, so its hard teaching myself an entirely new way to draw
It will improve your sketches as well. Drawing with the whole arm gives you better range of motion and allows smoother and longer strokes. OP's meme about sketches never rang true for me because a lot of the sketches people say are ruined by the inks weren't that great to begin with. Specialising in inking or pencilling is all well and good should you have a partner who knows the other half as well as you do yours, but the fundamental skills are the same in each. Good draftsmanship is worthwhile at every stage of a drawing and if you learn good inking, you'll be better at sketches as well.
You cut out the middle man and do a clean sketch/clean it up as you go
Yeah I would keep it a mystery. Sometimes you don't need to know everything about a world or character. It also encourages fan engagement and creation since then they can discuss and write their own theories.
Lineart, or inking, is a completely different skill than sketching is. It takes a lot of practice. I personally found practicing in real life with sharpies and pens on paper really helpful for transferring that skill into digital art.
You gotta vary your lineweights dude, the lineart also completely ignored the shading, which makes it look much flatter. Guy also fricked up the ears and chin from the sketch.
Huh, for some reason this picture finally made it click. Always associated shading in the same process as coloring for some reason.
Outlines are just a variety of shading, my dude. Why do you think everyone uses black or dark contrasting colors for outlines?
NTA, but I think the left "flat" piece is still a pretty good-looking picture. I don't think uniform lines are bad, I have lots of pictures saved on my computer that I love that don't use any line weight or shading. Pic related is a fanart I really like.
the lines on the left aren't uniform
you can fool around with brush setting to get automatic tilting to achieve more weighty lines
artist?
Anon beat me to it, but yeah varied and interesting line weights are your friend. Practicing using only inks can help you get a better feel for your inking tools. Inks as a medium can be every bit as interesting as a sketch,
Are you using some kind of mirror drawing tool? Always been intrigued by the idea seeing the results it can do but also feels like a shortcut
That was inked with a symmetry ruler for the sake of brevity, save for some minor bits and bobs. It has use cases but don't abuse, like any tool when to use it is as important as how to use it.
Still something I'm working on...
I notice many animated things don't do this though, like Hilda. Is that because of the colouring making up for it?
>Would the solution then be to just obfuscate it to keep it a mystery?
yes.
What's the difference between keeping aspects of a character mysterious/vague, and a shitty mystery box where you leave things open for everyone else to figure out because you're too lazy to come up with ideas yourself?
The former has consistent hints about it throughout the story
The latter is treated like a random thing and never brought again
I feel that I need to do this for my robot character, as a detailed explanation for why it turned sentient in the first place will NEVER be satisfactory enough. But dropping conflicting hints may make it interesting.
Make it a noodle incident where every allusion to it is more absurd than the last and no one can entirely agree on how it all played out.
As a writer you should know exactly how your character got to where they are. If there is a mystery in a character's past or present you need to know what it is clearly enough that you can write them consistently. Backstory is overrated anyways, the most interesting time in a character's life should be the story you're telling NOW! If a character's origin is really all that interesting, make THAT your main plot. Trying to make a character's backstory cooler than the story they are currently in paints you into a corner creatively, much like how a lot of Star Wars spin-offs are all jammed like sardines between ep III and the original STAR WARS leaving a lot less room for stories that change the world they occupy because it all has to keep things on either side of it aligned.
character development is different from fully explaining a character
you can have a gruff jerkass slowly turn into a more affectionate and smooth out his rough edges over time without necessarily explaining everything about them
you dont always need to explain how they became so cold and distant in the first place or what happened to them, beyond a few hints, but you do want them to grow as people and leave their baggage behind
I think Hellboy is a good example of this. He set a mystery breadcrumb of who his parents were, what his stone hand was, where he came from and why and then answered them as it felt appropriate.
Reminds me of Garak from Deep Space 9. He told 3 different origin stories of himself. He claims they're all true, especially the lies.