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Art help & advice wanted!

I'm having some trouble cleaning up my sketches and I'd like to hear some of the techniques you guys like to use.

Leutre says if I blur a sketch, I should see the line-art and how everything would come together but I'm just not seeing it. Leu, could you post an example of this?

I'd also really like some tips for mixing realistic skin-colors and techniques for shading that create realistic looking materials (for example, latex, leather, wool and metal are four I'm having trouble with).

I'd also really like to learn how I can achieve a really polished look to my work.

Here's what my stuff's like at the moment (oldest to newest, top to bottom)

NSFW - Not Safe For Work (or any environments like that, eg school)

Miriaria, spread (NSFW)
Eskassa, a loose parody on Mutio (NSFW)
Some alien from a game Forte hassled me into drawing(NSFW)
A bored catgirl (NSFW)
Miriaria sketch
Miriaria, face altered


Thanks for your time, SA!
 
Click to expand...
I noticed the quality seems to be good near the top, and them gets worse as you go down.
 
Yeah... I spend a lot of time with faces but I can't quite seem to nail out hands and feet or the lower torso properly.
 
Made a quick tutorial. Sorry if its not that good, it was a few-minute-long job.

Part 1. Before sketch opacity change.

Part One said:
[Explanation of Part 1 of the Tutorial (first screenshot)]

LEFT CANVAS: I can never stress enough how important different layers are. They allow you to totally redo entire portions of your work without damaging other aspects, making the (re)drawing process much faster. For example, see Leutre (male character, left canvas) with his hair over his eyes. Now with single layers that would have been a pain to redraw, but because I used separate layers for hair and eyes, I can change one without harming the other.

RIGHT CANVAS: On the right you see the 'Layers' window for the right drawing. If you're just doing sketches or other quick art, don't bother with most of the following. However, if you're doing high resolution, highly detailed art I find using this many seperate layers can help significantly.
  • Character lineart - basic body and clothing outlines.
  • Flat details - creases in clothing, buttons, seams. Tattoos, too. For mecha this would be wear and tear, like scratches, dents, chipping paint, rust, etc.
  • (Optional) 3D details - for detail with significant volume. Belts, bags, gun holsters. On mecha things like hatches, vents, fuel tanks. Sometimes this is useful, sometimes its just easier to combine with the "Flat details" layer.
  • Head shape - nose, chin, ears. The basic flesh and outline of the head.
  • Hair - On mecha, obviously not an issue.
  • Facial expression - The eyes and mouth. For characters this is usually the most detailed part of the body, so is quite important. On mecha, not so much unless they have detailed optical sensors.


  • Color Layers:
  • ColorLayer1 - Basic clothing or mecha paint.
  • ColorLayer2 - Secondary paint or clothing, such as stripes on mecha. For clothing you want to alternate 1 and 2. e.g., Having shoe colors on Layer1, pants colors on Layer2, shirt colors on Later1, hat colors on Layer2, etc. That way you can do things like blur, dodge, smudge, or other special effects without "spilling" them onto other nearby parts of the drawing. This is especially important if you're using clothing textures
  • ColorHair - Self-explanatory. Again, by keeping separate from clothing, they can contact without worry for unintentionally blurring colors together. If you're doing highly detailed hair, getting all the little details/shading is enough work to warrant its own layer.
  • ColorMisc - Misc details. Jewelry, belt buckles, eyes, and so on. Now both the sketch and lineart layers are semi-transparent. This allows you to see if you're following the sketch lines properly or not, because coloring out of the lines makes it appear lighter than ‘correct' lines. Lineart time. Yay!
Click to expand...

Part 2. After opacity change.

Part 3. The lineart itself.

The last one looks ugly, because I used a sketch that was originally a very low resolution. Once you try it yourself with higher res pieces, you should see the difference much better.
 
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