Echo Archives

[Echo_River]

Hello hello! Gosh, it's been a while. I had also been inflicted with the "unsafe site" on the chrome - when I remembered I could just open MR on another browser. Welp.

How is everyone doing? Let's see... for myself, I've been ping-ponging between writing and drawing. I started a new fantasy game isekai writing project. As for art, in preparation for Artfight in July, I've been doing character icons. Next is drawing their full body refs ooph. Must conquer!

Here are some of the things I've done in the past month! Haha, definitely have been lots of learning and practice @Coryn.

But the lines for the hands were quite thick compared to the rest of the piece so it looked like gloves? wasn't sure.

Oop. You're right. Being satisfied with thin lines is one of my struggles. I always tend to lean towards thicker lines.


Update -- All digital art this time.

Characters are from my story Charred Life.
- Roun, Kiaut, Nanik
- Relz, Kawyn, Cyan
- Kerry, Avery, Jeremy



References from characters that were created during art challenges




Recently I've had an interest in doing painty-ish backgrounds. I found a video with simple steps to follow along and have just been practicing, trying to get a feel for it. CLIP brushes have helped so much!

[Suuper-san]

Great work!
Lovely to see so many coloured pieces!!
The headshots are all fantastic, hard to pick a favourite, but I'd go with middle-right because I like how the hair flows. I've been trying to draw more random hair strands myself, it's quite difficult getting the curves right on each one :/

Love the backgrounds as well. I must say at the moment I prefer your traditional backgrounds that you have done in the past, but as you get more used to the digital methods I think they will look even better. But a full colour piece does have an extra charm to it all the same.

Having good brushes can definitely help with adding textures and details. I try and make my own brushes where I can for good practice in understanding how texture is made. GIMP has an option to use a "clipboard brush", where you can draw a little shape and then copy it, and instantly use it as a brush. I find that useful for testing out an idea for a brush, as well as duplicating items, like a snowflake or something, around the scene.

Being satisfied with thin lines is one of my struggles. I always tend to lean towards thicker lines.

Saaaaame, I can totally relate to that, my current style uses quite thick lines, but working with a higher resolution image is helping with getting them a bit thinner I think.

Keep us posted on the game! Very exciting stuff :P
I started learning how to draw to make game graphics, so it's something that's very close to my heart

[Coryn]

Gosh dang do I love Juniper's design! It's probably just me, but since I've been playing a fair amount of FF14 recently, her design really reminds me of the rouge class characters in that game.

I also really love the shape of Kerry's eyes! There's something vaguely threatening about them, and I mean that as a compliment, lol.

By-the-by, you should be able to click under the 'more options' button when chrome declares a site unsafe, and choose to proceed anyway. At least as long as you're on your own network.

[Echo_River]

@Suuper Random hair strands are fun! And sometimes a pain, yes, since they don't always work T_T

I must say at the moment I prefer your traditional backgrounds that you have done in the past, but as you get more used to the digital methods I think they will look even better. But a full colour piece does have an extra charm to it all the same.

That's a thought. That reminded me of an artist that fills in all the lineart details before colouring. They're called drivemawaytroubledheart on IG. Maybe I could colour on one of my traditional pieces as an experiment.

Keep us posted on the game! Very exciting stuff :P
I started learning how to draw to make game graphics, so it's something that's very close to my heart

I will! Right now it's kind of slow because I've been busy.
Yo, game sprites are my nemesis. One of the characters is a shadow fish.... been torn between having it float in the air, submerge from the ground, or just rest on a human's shoulder. The first two of which I have no clue how to animate 

@Coryn Haha! Yeah, I saw your status on discord. How are you liking the game?

I also really love the shape of Kerry's eyes! There's something vaguely threatening about them, and I mean that as a compliment, lol.

I'm glad it comes across that way! Yes, he's supposed to look a little... off XD

Update--

Still been working on the fullbody refs for Artfight. Mostly digital art in the past months.

Sketches for the fullbodies.


Changed Ron's design - again!




New Pfp

[Suuper-san]

That is a nice artist you linked to. I think digitally colouring traditional work is a very good idea - you get the best of both worlds, the texture and control for the traditional lineart (and possibly shading), and then the ease of adding and changing colours with digital tools. You can also do day/night variant shots very easily by adjusting the levels of brightness and colours.

Hmmmm, having the fish swim in the air in a forward-backward figure-8 sounds kinda doable maybe?
Depends on how you're using the animation, is it just a character icon or it follows the playable character as they move about? Or it's a playable character in its own right?

Some nice and natural full body poses there

And I love the character ref for Ron Warden, the outfit is very balanced in colours and details, not too overcrowded, but something interesting wherever I look. I've still got to get my head around detail balance like that :P

great headshot with/without the mask. And a very useful hand pose to be able to draw XD

keep it up, hope the artfight goes well, I dont know anything about it but sounds interesting :P

[Coryn]

@Echo: I'm really loving 14 actually! (To the detriment of my writing time, aha...) but it's a fun romp and I plan to swap up to a paid profile once I wrap up what I can do for free.

The new profile is really good! With just the addition of the mask the emotion changes dramatically.

[Echo_River]

@Coryn Nice! Lol, I've also been constantly facing the "Draw or game?" dilemma. Happy gaming!

@Suuper

You can also do day/night variant shots very easily by adjusting the levels of brightness and colours.

Ohhh, I didn't even think of that. Great idea!

Depends on how you're using the animation, is it just a character icon or it follows the playable character as they move about? Or it's a playable character in its own right?

Yes to following the player around as well as being a playable character, kind of like how I used Observer in the first RPG I shared. When moving around , I'm envisioning the fish jumping from shadow puddle to puddle. But when idle, bobbing up and down. May have to make 2 different sprite sheets for that....

keep it up, hope the artfight goes well, I dont know anything about it but sounds interesting :P

Thanks! ArtFight is basically a massive art trade. You get put on one of two teams and you attack others by drawing their OCs. Then they can choose to counterattack by drawing one of your OCs.

Here's the official site for it: https://artfight.net/

I've always seen others on DA do it. Since it's my first time, I'm going to find out if it'll be fun or stressful lol.

[Coryn]

I gotta ask then, are you also a 14 player Echo? I have yet to find another one to talk to about it in real life, lol

[Suuper-san]

ahhh thats what pfp meant lol
it looks good

ehehehe another advantage of day/night shots is you can add lights for the night shot which can really make the art pop.
I did a similar thing for my sci-fi cityscape here http://forums.mangaraiders.com/index.php/topic,4319.msg304682.html#msg304682

I'm envisioning the fish jumping from shadow puddle to puddle. But when idle, bobbing up and down. May have to make 2 different sprite sheets for that....

That sounds perfect. Having different idle/active sprite sheets is a fairly common thing IIRC.

RE artfight
Oh that sounds pretty rad, but sounds like a faff if you're not well organized. I think I would struggle to work with others on that, I'm a better solo player for most projects.

[Echo_River]

@Coryn I used to play. Can't remember why I stopped. I probably got caught up in doing other things....

Proceeds to launch game.

Oh right, updates.


@Suuper Ohh, I remember that! The nighttime one really does stand out after you see the day one.

Artfight - Organization struggle is right. I've noticed that some character refs are pretty much coloured sketches. Can't seem to bring myself to go that sketchy though 

[Coryn]

Updates are right, lol. Took me a minute (and a day) to get everything up and running, but they've been pretty quick downloads since.

[Echo_River]

Art Fight is over \o/ For my first year, I found it really fun. July was a month of working on that mindset of don't think - just draw, lots of experimenting with shading & lighting, and discovering the best workflow for me in the particular style I ended up going with.

Pre-Artfight --

Juniper warm-up.


Artfight --

Posted in chronological order.

Spoiler

Silas for Sleepyjellifish


Kairus for dotsmol


Drarthrez for Fredory


Liam for Ladybug


Sami for Anomalydoll


Marcel for MixL0m


Bali for cupbigbawls


Jaiden for RatFloofDog


Elie for _s_a_y__


Derroc for CosmicZeus


Storm for SysterSyn


Lyra for Kohaku_Dragon


Stuart for BobbyJoeX


Sophie for TheVermin


Carson for mamalonglegs32


Ethan for asdflove

[Coryn]

Really good stuff came from the art fight huh?! Super good lighting effects on a lot of these. Flack jacket girl and the dude at the door with the fire really stand out!

[Suuper-san]

Wow I think these are some of your best artworks!!!!
I think the effort=results really applies here, you were treating these pieces a lot more seriously than perhaps your own casual works. I know I treat requests as a god-tier seriousness as opposed to my own stuff :P

So hard to pick a favourite, but the ones that are well lit are definitely at the top.
Drarthrez for Fredory - awesome "thin-outline backlighting" whatever they call it.
Liam for Ladybug - great light effects and particles
Bali for cupbigbawls - nice gritty feel
Jaiden for RatFloofDog - apart from being a fullbody shot which is always a plus, lighting is almost magical. The lens flares and stuff really add to the piece.
Elie for _s_a_y__ - sort of a standard piece but clothign is done nicely. lose clothing is much harder than tight, and it looks great. also nice soft BG.
Lyra for Kohaku_Dragon - again awesome backlighting. Is that an explosion behind her? I think if it is, then you could perhaps do with some blacks for smoke, or some cloud/impact structure in the form, otherwise looks like a jagged spotlight. Looks more like a nebula tbh, cool but maybe not what you were aiming at.
Stuart for BobbyJoeX - I very like when magic is a light source - it makes for such dynamic pieces such as this one. Very well done directional lighting. And also nice flow of clothing to suit the characters motion.
Carson for mamalonglegs32 - very cute character and nicely done loose clothing, shame it's not a full bodyshot otherwise I would have loved it even more.

So, regarding Artfight...did you....win? is it something that you even can win? or it's just an artshare event? With extra exposure, does everyone win?

[Echo_River]

@Coryn Thanks! I surprised myself with some of these too XD

@Suuper Thanks!! Haha I am super lazy with my own works I'll admit. Doing art for others always makes me put in way more detail and effort.

RE: Lyra for Kohaku_Dragon - Actually, I was going for the nebula look XD The character is a space pirate. Might've been able to pull off something more convincing if I had looked up some references of spacey material. (Although explosions are on the list of things to do yas)

RE: Artfight - They haven't released the final scores yet (due on the 15th). Last I saw, the team I was on, Team Bloom, was ahead. But then they hid the scores a couple days before the end of the event So the winner is yet to be announced.
It's not the best way to get yourself exposed imo? Everyone is busy getting drawings out it's easy to overlook people unfortunately.