Hello,

I'm trying to improve my art through lots of Sess/Kag drawings...

The style that I really want to learn is realism. Is there anyone who can give me some tips about how to paint the style?

Ex. Hair, Skin, Finishing touches...etc

Thanks

Lots and lots of blending.

I would also say that the trick is to have minimal lines when starting the painting. If you have too many lines, it's easy to miss spaces. When you go back and delete the line art at the end, you may notice that there are plenty of spaces that you didn't colour in because the lines got in the way.

Whenever I do a realistic painting, I just start with a very rough sketch of what I want to see and start filling in from there. Occasionally, if I can't figure out where I want my light source to come from, I will play with painting in grey, black and white to figure out how I want the image lit. When I'm satisfied with it, I will go back in and start adding colour.

It's also a good idea to use a reference image and to choose your palette before you actually begin. And put everything on a separate layer; group them to avoid making more trouble for yourself.

Other than that, it's really just a matter of studying people; how they move, how they are lit in different situations, etc.

>3> Thanks SOOO MUCH! I will keep that in mind. I've been practicing a lot. I actually also purchased a book to teach you how to draw human faces.

I've never been formally trained, and taken art in high school because my parents are against it =/ So I'm kind of groping around in the dark....AND YOUTUBE!

But again, THANKS ^^

The main tip I have is to NEVER use black to shade ( add shadows) and never use white to lighten ( add reflection, except in eyes but that is a different story) I read once that warm light should have a cold shadow. Another tip is to get a color wheel for quick ref.

I actually found that my coloring looks more natural-ish when I used a complimentary color to shade rather than a tint or a tone. Then again my coloring is still kind of off, and I am still looking for improvement myself.

There's a lot of good advice here that I completely agree on. Being someone who also has never had any sort of lessons or training I can fully understand how frustrating it can be to find your way. You've gotten a lot of good tips so far, especially to use reference pics. Really look at a picture, its amazing the little things of a face's structure and such that we tend to overlook simply because we subconsciously know what it looks like, but when it comes to putting pencil/pen to paper/tablet its not as easy anymore XD So yes, use reference for anything you might need to have help with. Also a big agreement on never use black for shading, use shades of that color instead.
I would recommend going to deviantART and going into the resources there, lots of tutorials there to help you with tricks of the trade. Also I found a very useful skin tone color swatch to add to Photoshop. Skin tone isn't just shades of tan and browns, there are hints of purple and pinks and so on.
As from personal experience, use blur tool sparingly and with caution as shadows can be defined areas also. In a lot of my pics I find the smudge tool to be very useful with varying degrees of strength, such as very light say around 10-20% for the tips of hair with a splotchy type brush, but for sharper folds in cloth I use closer to 60-70% with a round tip brush. And I work in layers, most of my pics are around 10 layers before completion (ie a layer for skin, another for clothing, another for hair)

I've never been trained either- groping around in the dark ftw! I actually do quite a bit of realism... but I never post them, not quite ready for that yet. I find myself intrigued and learning the most from studying what other artists do.

People like:

Yumedust (Beautiful realism work)
Technoelfie (More beautiful realism work... and she likes SessKag!)
Michelle84 (I've followed her for years... amazing artist with a nice mix of realism and a tiny bit of anime.. kind of.)


And like Terri said- never shade with pure white or pure black by default. If you're experimenting with that kind of lighting, however, go for it! Also avoid dodge and burn like the plague... and lens flare. Artists who've worked in Photoshop or have worked with digital means can instantly tell when you take the 'cheap' way out.

Don't get me wrong, it can look great and those tools aren't bad. But a lot of people use them [dodge/burn] as their default highlight and shading tool... and using them kind of skips over the whole learning process of picking colors yourself and learning the saturation and things. Nothing in art is ever off-limits.. that's what makes it art! <33333333333 Just don't use them if you're feeling lazy or uncreative. (Been there, done that!) It makes for a bad habit- if you get tired of working on a pic get up and walk away for a while, or even start a new project.

(Sorry if any of this offends anyone! I honestly don't mean it in a mean way and like I said those tools can look amazing, that's what they're there for! <3 Plus I'm really bad with English/phrasing myself, LOL. fdjasghfa;fjsa <3)

I hope this helps Naomi. >3< If you need I can try and find some of the tutorials I have.. somewhere from the internet that helps with realism features (nose/eyes/mouths).

Thanks for all the replies you guys!

Although I do use photoshop, I tend not to use anything but the smudge/brush/eraser/zoom tools LOL. And sometimes patterns and filters for extra little stuffs.

I don't really know all you can do with photoshop, and I've never really bothered learning because I don't want to 'manipulate' photos, I want to make my own!

But I can definitely see improvement from my first colored picture XD

So all the practicing does help hehe.

And a "yes please!!!" to the tutorials XD I missed that on the first read

Some of my favorite tutorials: Enayla's Website

She has beautiful works- the tutorials are really helpful and so is studying her (and others') art to get a feel of her brush strokes. A lot of times just staring at a picture can give you an epiphany or an idea or how to go about doing something.

Mind you, if you want to paint things like that, Hard Round Photoshop brushes aren't recommended. Custom or Soft Round brushes with varying opacity are your friends. Even better if you can add a little texture to it.

Here are some tips from Moni158. I highly recommend checking out all of her 'tips' series.

How to do a semi-realistic eye by yuumei.

Of course they are many other great ones, these are just some of my favorites.

I have never been much of a great teacher. I am better off showing than explaining (probably because I tend to be more of a visual learner).

I have had formal training in photoshop. I have actual textbooks on it and class time from college. It was required classes for my web design major.

The art I have mostly developed on my own with a mixture of art lessons in high school. Art kinda runs in my family.

One thing I do say (and from what I have seen of your works, I say this is not an issue), is to have a good eye for detail.

One thing to create realism is this: NO LINES! Where lines are should be some sort of shading, whether "behind" or "in front." For examples look at my dA.

It is hard to describe.

I tend to favor cool colors, but sometimes there are some things that only warm colors work with. (again, see my dA for examples). But as tots said, don't use black to shade and white to lighten. A little isn't bad, but a lot creates to many gray patches and strange effects.

That's about all I can say without actually visually showing you. ^^

The best advice is to observe and practice repeatedly, drawing different things. There are plenty of tips on how to colour and paint realistically, but you really have to get your basic drawing skills up to scratch first. It also depends on what you want to draw as well, for example drawing people realistically is very different from drawing animals or plants realistically. For me it was more of a mindset and a skillbase I had to develop first in order to improve the overall quality of my artwork. Realism in art is learned over time with lots of practice, drawing different things.

For example, drawing birds can help you to better understand how to draw feathers, wings, claws, and bird feet. Drawing dogs or cats teaches you how to draw four-legged animals, fur, and paws, and tails. Drawing people can teach you how to better draw eyes, noses, cheeks, chins, necks, and shoulders etc. Then comes the complexities of clothing, folds, draping and so on for people.

Even then if you are fairly good at those things, you can always improve on adding extra details for example to an image of Sesshy's Mokomoko pelt, instead of just drawing the outline, why not add all the detail of each individual hair in the fur? I'm of the mindset that realism comes with learning one's own style, and I've gone from doing outline linearts to adding loads of detail into my basic images.

It helps to better understand little things in drawings too, like details in the hair, shine in the eyes, and hair in furs. Interesting, but it takes a great deal of time, dedication, interest, and practice.

My chief advice would be this: Observe real life people, animals, and plants and learn how they move, flow etc, you'll help yourself out a lot in terms of the understanding of how to draw it.

Then take a pencil and paper, and draw by hand, don't trace or use an easel, just go freehand making quick sketches of what you see. Create a scrapbook, for reference later, you'll help yourself out a lot later on too.

~ Pyre

Cool! I'll definitely try and practice more. Thanks for the tips. =]