[Genicide]

Painted without reference. Comments please.

[Sumaleth]

Reference is kinda necessary to start with. Once you've got a handle on the shapes, proportions and details of the human face you can go free form, but when starting off reference is almost essential to avoid common errors that can art unattractive.

[[666]Flat]

cry, my darling, when teh vampire is passing by. uhm, yeah, keep it up!

[Genicide]

I realize a reference is the best thing to start out with, but i would rather paint from my mind then from a magazine.

[Lolion]

I should probably not put words into other people's mouths, but I sort of see where Sumaleth's going with this...

In my (rather meager) experience, painting or drawing from reference will greatly increase the quality of the pictures you create. This doesn't necessarily mean that you have to sit down and paint everything exactly as you see it, thus only recreating images - no no, quite the contrary I think. As long as your own imagination is there setting the limits, you'll be able to tweak and in other ways enhance the images you paint from reference. Of course, as Sumaleth has already experienced (and I hope to do the same some day), when you reach a certain skill level you'll find that you no longer need to look at reference for your creations to look realistic and well... spectacular, really.

A lot of great artists on these forums have made some of their (in my oppinion) best pieces based on photo-refs, so it's just there as support in the end.

Anyway, on your own picture -
It's got a lot of soft edges in it (something I'm still struggling with to an almost ridiculous degree) as well as a quite odd shadow placed on the vampire.
His nose almost resembles the shape of... well, one of those sweatdrops you'd see in Donald Duck comics if you know what I mean
I'd think that moving it a bit further to the right might improve the facial structure somewhat as well.
Also, the fangs look sort of flat. This might be because they're the only part of his upper bite protruding, they're unshaded, and the lips do not seemingly react at all to the fangs sticking out.

I think the girl looks rather nice all in all, so good work on that, especially on the way you did her hair, blending it with the background. Very stylish

Also, the blood running from the vampires eye looks very real.

Keep up the good work, and check them magazines out!

[Genicide]

Lolion, i greatly appreciate your reply. I think that instead of doing a time consuming painting using a reference, ill just do speed paintings as much as possible. Using references on the speed paintings will help me in the end when i am ready to sit down and create my own masterpeice, straight from the head. Am i right?

[ April 25, 2002: Message edited by: Genicide ]

[Lolion]

Hey, don't ask me, I'm just empathizing with Sumaleth

I'm sure you'll find what works best for you in the end though.

[Snorkles]

hey genocide, instead of drawing of magazines, draw off porn from internet and do "fantasy pics".