Do My Portraits Suck?!

Chinchilla & Hedgehog Pet Forum

Help Support Chinchilla & Hedgehog Pet Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
take the 3rd ones eyes and place it on the first chinny and you have absolute perfection imo!
 
wow! What an awesome job you did, especially since you haven't drawn them before. The first and third look like photos to me. Keep drawing!!!
 
Thanks so much, everyone! Here's a cartoony one I did. And I made the eyes of the first drawing a little less crazy. Haha!
 

Attachments

  • chinchillacute.jpg
    chinchillacute.jpg
    21.5 KB · Views: 26
  • chinchilladrawing2.jpg
    chinchilladrawing2.jpg
    22.8 KB · Views: 31
Wow, those are awesome!!

My ONLY critique (and I seriously live for critiquing things--no joke) would be to either lower the left arm (it's right) of the first chin, or make it flow more into the shoulder...if that makes any sense. I didn't notice any creepiness in the eyes, to be honest. Maybe if you put a little more brown on the reflected light in them?

What are you using to make these? Are they drawings that you've enhanced on your computer? They look very interesting. I love them!
 
caiti said:
Wow, those are awesome!!

My ONLY critique (and I seriously live for critiquing things--no joke) would be to either lower the left arm (it's right) of the first chin, or make it flow more into the shoulder...if that makes any sense. I didn't notice any creepiness in the eyes, to be honest. Maybe if you put a little more brown on the reflected light in them?

What are you using to make these? Are they drawings that you've enhanced on your computer? They look very interesting. I love them!
Click to expand...


Thank you! And I love constructive criticism, so I appreciate your comments! Adding some brown or maybe even some lighter gray would help the eyes a lot, I bet.

I use Photoshop for most of my artwork. I sketch the drawing on a piece of paper, scan it in, and digitally paint it with the pen and paint brush tool from scratch.

And I think chinchillas are my new favorite thing to draw. Haha!
 
You've got great detail in the last two. Part of what we're seeing with the first, I think, has to do w/ its color. Without the agouti hairs on the standard or the b/w contrast on the mosaic, it can be harder to get the "fluffy" feeling across as well on a violet.

If you work from photos, feel free to browse my album on here for inspiration. ;)
 
3CsMommy said:
You've got great detail in the last two. Part of what we're seeing with the first, I think, has to do w/ its color. Without the agouti hairs on the standard or the b/w contrast on the mosaic, it can be harder to get the "fluffy" feeling across as well on a violet.

If you work from photos, feel free to browse my album on here for inspiration. ;)
Click to expand...

Thank you! Yeah, the violet was hard to get to be violet without looking purple or blue. Haha!

I just might take you up on the offer of using your photos as inspiration. :) It's always great to have photos to look at when doing portraits. Eventually I would like to sell them, but I need quite a bit more practice first.
 
I've been practicing a LOT more!! I think I've gotten much better. Here's my newest.

Think I'm ready to start listing custom portraits for sale? :)
 

Attachments

  • chinportraitsmaller.jpg
    chinportraitsmaller.jpg
    71.8 KB · Views: 31
I think your portraits are very nice. I like the way you take the photos of chins and then use the smudge tool to smooth out the texture of the fur and then airbrush in some color in various places. I think you are well on your way to becoming a great photoshop artist!

I cannot wait to see your chin portraits when you actually free-hand draw them, instead of editing them from a pic. Should be fantastic.



A great way to learn is to quickly free hand sketch your own chins as they sit in their cage. It will teach you lots about their anatomy and if you have a light source near their cage, you can practice shading in their shadows. Then you will be able to draw chins anytime, anywhere without a "reference photo for inspiration."

(just some tips I've learned over the years with using traditional media like acrylics and watercolor. Please use to your benefit!)

Good luck on your art endeavors!
SC
 
That's really not how I did it. I actually drew the picture, scanned it, used a complete base color, airbrushed, and then used textured brushes for the fur. Then I used the smudge tool to give more of a fluffy fur effect.

I will be very excited to sketch my chins sitting in their cage though. That will be so much fun, and then free handing without using a photo for body shape and size will be so much easier.
 
One of my scanned pencil sketches before coloring. :)
 

Attachments

  • pencilsketch.jpg
    pencilsketch.jpg
    96.7 KB · Views: 20
SpaceChinnie said:
I think your portraits are very nice. I like the way you take the photos of chins and then use the smudge tool to smooth out the texture of the fur and then airbrush in some color in various places. I think you are well on your way to becoming a great photoshop artist!
Click to expand...

Those aren't photos of chins. If you look, there are slight imperfections in all of them suggesting an artist's hands at work. A photo would just be blurred without any imperfections. I also don't know any artist that does portraits of people's animals without using a favorite photo of that animal. Learning off of photos will help her the most considering that is how you do commissioned work.

I think they are great. You know you're doing a great job when someone says you're photoshopping real photos of chins instead of drawing them yourself. I'd love to get something from you if the price is right. I have a couple things in mind for pictures, I need one to hang over my bar at my place of a chin in a hammock with some bottles and such around it. I have plenty of hammock pictures of chins if needed.
 
Thanks, RDZC!

I'm working on coloring the sketch I just uploaded to show the different steps I take when coloring. I do use photo references. I would LOVE to practice so much that I can free hand chins and make them sitting in any position. That would be wonderful. :)
 
I didnt mean any disrespect when I said "photoshop artist." In one of the previous posts Gabby88 said that she used the software. There are a lot of wonderful artists that spend 100% of their time creating their art entirely in digital media. I just wasnt aware that Gabby88 started on paper with a sketch and then moved to photoshop.

I was trying to pass on some friendly knowledge about art with the using the light source however. Using photos for reference is great but nothing compares with a real life model. (plus your chins will love you for interacting with them, even if you are only sitting next to them sketching. Half the time, they pose for you! ;) )

As with any skill that is learned, you can never have enough advice.

Just my 2 cents. (not trying to be mean)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Back
Top