Escapades of a new WACOM owner

[EarthScorpion]

Yes, I got a tablet for Christmas, and only now have I had enough time to sit down with it, and play around with it.  I'm going to end up sketching the occasional thing, as I use the new toy, and try to improve my drawing skills.  I haven't done Art for... oh, six years, so I'm pretty out of practice, and I wasn't that good at anything organic (I was a pretty good technical drawer).  Therefore, I'm going to be using this thread as a repository for various 40k images, hopefully for criticimsm and suggestions for how I can improve.

Thus, the following image;



Yeah, I'm new at this.  It shows.  I'm using GIMP as my program, and a Bamboo MTE-450E to actually draw.  This is just a rough sketch of a soldier of the Pentexian Second (Pentex, recruited from the Cthonic Guard (the underground regiments).  They got a quite strong Gears of War theme, what with the fighting of pale skinned mutants in extensive tunnel networks, and, yes, there might quite well be chainsword bayonets.  Hence, the heavy armour (because the Eusorgan are considerably stronger than base humans), and air supply to the helmet, to prevent reactions to Eusorgan pheromone and the effects of low oxygen.

I started by sketching the human body as a selection of ovals, in black ten to 10% opacity. I am using different layers, by the way, it's just that I wanted to show you it all, including the underlines, for comments on how I can improve.  The clothes were then drawn over the top, to fit the body, in red in 20% opacity.  Things were then affirmed, in 75% opacity black, for the final shapes.  Armour is bluish grey, at about 50%, the head plate is white, and the eyes are a highlighted sequence of blues.

And I really can't draw hands.

[CELS]

Promising concept there. The helmet reminds me of the Predator helmet, I don't know if that was intentional, but I like it. I like it when Imperial troops look like "bad guys", rather than heroic WW2 freedom fighters.

Technically, my suggestion would be to simply take the hard road, sit down with some YouTube tutorials on drawing human anatomy and just get to know the human body. Personally, even though I believe I have at least a little artistic skill, I've experienced that I can't really take the short-cut and just start drawing people. It just looks cartoonish. And I notice your drawing looks like my drawings. We both draw feet/ shoes in the same basic way, we both draw at an angle (you can see how the guy seems to be leaning to the left of the screen), and I guess you're right-handed like me.

Overlooking the technical stuff, I guess my only criticism would be modifying the breast plate design. It looks too basic, too 80's sci-fi. Even if you're not going to have some traditional curves to show the outlines of pectorals and abdomen, I'd at least try to give it more texture and curves in another way.

Good idea drawing inspiration from Gears of War though. It's an image that is easily transferred to 40k. Big guns and steel armour with chipped paint and bullet holes

[Studio Colrouphobia]

Let me just start by saying congratulations for getting a WACOM fr christmas.
May I inquire which type it is?
Bamboo, Intuos, other?

This will help me help you better.


Learning how to use a tablet is like drawing your first time with the wrong hand- it sucks and you're wondering why the **** you spent shitloads of cash on this piece of flat metal/plastic (you, obviously will not curse your wallet for being empty, but I digress).

Once you get a hang of it (which might take up to three-four months depending on how long inbetween your sketchings) it will start ease your mind, and eventually you will most likely find that it has benefits over traditinal media, as far as being able to draw and paint proper.

If you belong to a group of people that just dont get there (and if it is an intuos) you are very free to send me your tablet... 

Technical stuff:
Looks like you are starting off with a low dpi there. Or possibly that you are using the pen-tool rather then the brush-tool in GIMP.
Your lines look pixelated (i.e. they look like block-lines). This is either because of a low dpi or because of the pen-tools inability to make lines look more natural.

The brush-tool usually sits at the same icon as the pen-tool.. you should hold down your mousebutton on the icon and then you get a list of two or three options, one of which will be the brush tool. Otherwise it sits as an icon in itself just next to the pen-tool. Looks like a brush wit a bit of paint on it.

Once you have done that you can start working with the brush-settings, which allow you to use the preassuresensitivity of the WACOM.
After you start feeling confident enough, I would suggest trying to get your hands on Photoshop or Painter, as the possibilities with a wacom are just lightyears ahead with a tablet and one of those programmes (or both).

good start though