• Square Elite
  1. If you are having trouble logging in, check the box, "stay logged in" to fix the issue. Thanks! —KHP Staff
  2. Hi Guest, you may have noticed that we aren't khplanet.com anymore. For more information on why these changes are happening, check out our thread, Site Re-Brand Updates

"Draw" It Again

Discussion in 'Archive' started by Kitty, Oct 3, 2012.

  1. Kitty

    Kitty I Survived The BG Massacre Staff Member Administrator

    So, I'm a major lurker over at deviantART, and there's an improvement meme that some of the artists I watch have completed, wherein they take a very old piece from their gallery, then redraw it in their current style and taking advantage of the new skills they've learned, then see how it compares. And I thought it was really cool to see how much someone's style can change in even a short amount of time. But I'm not an artist, really, so I decided to take one of the oldest signatures I haven't deleted and use the stock to remake the piece. And since this section is pretty devoid of posts lately, I thought I'd post it up and try and encourage other people to do it too and share their work.

    So, I went on a binge a couple years back and deleted my oldest, most embarrassing signatures. The one I chose to remake isn't my oldest remaining, but it's the oldest one that I could do a google search and find the same stock in a high enough quality to use again.

    [​IMG]

    I made this sig, I believe, some time in 2005, possibly 2006. I'd made it as a request for my youngest sister, who'd briefly joined a forum I was moderating on; we had a whole Charmed thing going on. :rolleyes: I seriously don't know what the hell I was thinking when I made this. I think I must have seen something vaguely similar making use of c4ds, but back when I barely knew what the hell a c4d was, I went with smudging lens flares. Yeah, I don't know either. I rarely love my work, but I do remember liking this one.

    [​IMG]

    And this is the sig that I made today using the same stock. There are still things about this that I don't like, which is usual for me. The background is lacking in depth moreso than it seemed while I was making it (making the sig on one computer and viewing it on another makes a bigger difference than I would have thought), and it's a little bit all over the place, really. But I think I improved on the colors (in that I actually colored the thing) and I think it looks a little more like a cohesive image and less like I slapped together a background and then slapped on a render and called it a day.

    When I get back from my trip, I'll probably take some more old signatures and redo them, because I enjoyed just fooling around without worrying about getting someone's request done on time or fulfilling their requirements, and if I'm gonna pick some random stock to use, might as well use one I've done before. But y'all out there who do graphics, you come on and post in here too. Show us all your humiliating first attempts and then make it better. :cool:
     
  2. Beloved

    Beloved Azure's Beloved

    Would it be okay to post opinions and such here without showing off some works?

    Hopefully so because I have a bit of advice for all artists out there. And especially you Kitty. I too am a perfectionist and I'm rarely satisfied with my work once "completed". So please allow me to say that your signatures may not be the top of the line, but they express a part of you that lies dormant until you let it out like this. This is true for all artists I believe. Though i found graphics and physical art wasn't my thing, music was. I have people telling me my original dubstep tracks amd remixes are amazing when I'm finished. But I never think so. However I did discover that in my style, there is a part of me that is exposed and vulnerable. Something deeply personal that I never feel is good enough. But with my own acceptance of that, I exploded into a plethora of new ideas amd a boldness that threw away my lack of self confidence.

    Truth is, no matter how bad you may think it is. To others it outshines all the rest....

    .... um so I have no idea where that came from, but maybe you needed to hear that? Maybe someone else did? Who knows. I hope this post is acceptable for the topic. (It'd be a shame if it got removed after saying all of that. Lol) All in all... much improved. ^_^
     
  3. EtherealSummoner

    EtherealSummoner Lamentations 3:22-26

    ... Draw it again...hm... I guess I can rework on these piece of art:

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    :mad: Oh my gosh. I'm older now and I see things I dislike now. I don't know. I can try again but I am not sure if I can make it any better.
     
  4. Kitty

    Kitty I Survived The BG Massacre Staff Member Administrator

    ^You've gotta try again. That's the point of the thread, after all. XD

    You should redo the Namine one. I have a crappy old sig using that same stock, too, so we could both put them up (I also think it's cool to see how two different people interpret the same image).

    Yes, feel free to comment on what other people share.
     
  5. EtherealSummoner

    EtherealSummoner Lamentations 3:22-26

    Found my renders... -_- but I am making sure that they look good and that they hardly having any problems this time. I cannot find the render of Namine in that first picture so I am will have to find a different Namine render.
     
  6. Kitty

    Kitty I Survived The BG Massacre Staff Member Administrator

    I had some time today and decided to do another set.

    [​IMG]
    This is a sig I made some time after the previous old sig I posted, probably early to mid 2006, though that's only a guess. There's some very light c4d use, and it looks like that's about it. I might've edited the colors a bit, but if I did, I can't tell now. I liked smaller sigs back then- this size was typical, though now I find that it doesn't give me much room to add effects.

    [​IMG]
    This is the sig using the same stock that I made this evening. I wanted something light and airy, and I feel like I mostly succeeded, though it's maybe a little too light. I use a lot of clipping masks nowadays; I should probably move away from that a bit, but it's easy to do and I get lazy. I could probably have used a clipping mask and done something similar to the doubled image from the old sig, but I liked this better.

    So, one more instance that I can use to prove to myself that I actually have gotten better over the years, even if I may not be as good as I'd like.

    I'd still like other people who GFX to post their befores and afters, too *hint hint*.
     
  7. EtherealSummoner

    EtherealSummoner Lamentations 3:22-26

    <.< I honestly tried. This here is my makeover of Namine. I can see the problems that I did though:

    1. Little bit too light.
    2. Light/White Background.

    Not sure as to what else I need to work on. I made sure that she is not sloppy and look as though Namine is not cut... and I guess it looks like one piece of art instead of separate art (I actually decided to go from scratch).

    Now I am going to work on Dissidia Yuna next.
     

    Attached Files:

  8. Kitty

    Kitty I Survived The BG Massacre Staff Member Administrator

    ^ I have to say, it already makes a huge difference when you cut back on the amount of contrast. The new Namine avy looks tons better than the first just because of that. And there's a big difference with the blending on the new one, too. The cut on the first version really takes away from the whole look, and you've fixed that.

    I think we have the same problem of going a little too light with this stock. >_< I think you could still improve- I think the new avy feels a little flat and could use some depth to the background, but really, much better. ^_^

    I'm glad someone else is sharing.
     
  9. EtherealSummoner

    EtherealSummoner Lamentations 3:22-26

    I don't know. I am always having trouble with depth but I will just have to keep on working on that.

    :mad: Now, I just did Yuna but I almost fell into the same mistake of having her all light. I went back over her again and try to figure out how to avoid that and I try to do something darker with Yuna. I don't know. I guess with female characters, I see lighter colors. But anyway, this is what I did over on Yuna. <_< I was very frustrated with this one. I first thought of lighter colors and while trying to think of a background, I thought of her summoning glyphs. Was halfway done but then it looked ugly to me and I realize that I need a black background so I did this right back over. I messed up on the green glyph a little bit. Went and overlayed it a little bit too much with green. I don't know! Maybe I should've just stick with one type of glyph circle instead of trying to use different type of glyph circles! I may just do this back over.

    I was trying to figure out what to fill up the top right corner with. It was bothering me and it looked empty so I went online and download me some more brushes. Put up some starry brushes I think I did. I slapped five glyphs, one on Yuna's arm and four surrounding her with thunder. I was being cautious, making sure not to overuse any thunder brushes; I did have fun turning my background, effects and other things around and changing the opacity of my colors and brushes.

    So... what do you guys think? <_> I really did not know what to do with the color of the text so all I can think of is grey...the reason I went back over this Yuna is because in the last one, the lighting on Yuna is too strong, background is done too much and text really did not blend.
     

    Attached Files:

    Last edited: Nov 2, 2012
  10. Kitty

    Kitty I Survived The BG Massacre Staff Member Administrator

    I think version two of the Yuna sig is also much better than the first. The stock is much higher quality and really improves the entire look. There's not much depth to the background and the text is a little boring. I actually like some of the colors in the first sig version better, but the second is easier on the eyes.

    I have another tag picked out to make over- I'm gonna try and work on it tomorrow and post them.
     
  11. EtherealSummoner

    EtherealSummoner Lamentations 3:22-26

    <_< I didn't have a chance to get to my other pictures because I was too busy trying to make avatars for Lady Starship so I might as well throw the avatars in here to show that I did redo them over. Time for me to focus on Feral Chaos.

    First Picture

    Who.jpg

    REDO!


    ALLY-O.jpg
     
    Last edited: Dec 2, 2012
  12. Kitty

    Kitty I Survived The BG Massacre Staff Member Administrator

    Hmm, I'm not sure that the redo is much of an improvement. The second version has a higher image quality, but everything's so white and bright that you can barely see anything. The first is kind of grainy and the background lacks depth.

    To motivate myself to actually get it done tonight, this is the sig that I'll be redoing next:

    [​IMG]

    I made this sig somewhere between the Rose McGowan sig I posted first and the Namine sig (the good thing about changing my username so much is that I can at least fairly accurately date these things, because otherwise I'd be clueless), so I'd been in graphics for about a year and a half or so. It's a little boring to me now because I didn't add any coloring and the background is simply made from smudging the stock image. Text is the fairly simple, barely proficient effect it usually is in my work (why are you so hard, text?).

    I'll add the redo tonight after I make it. XD

    Edit version 2:

    [​IMG]

    Here's the version I made tonight. It's made from c4ds and textures. I don't particularly love this, but I think it looks better than the old one. For some really weird reason, my fonts didn't load when I started my photoshop, and I was too lazy to restart it, so I was stuck with only Times New Roman. So, crappy font, but eh, could be worse.
     
  13. Remedy

    Remedy Remnant

    I'll join in soon, first I have to find an old sig haha deleted most
     
  14. Kitty

    Kitty I Survived The BG Massacre Staff Member Administrator

    ^ Yeah, that's the problem I have, too. The sigs I have left are all at least borderline competent; all of the really dreadful ones I deleted a long time ago. I wish I still had the first sig I ever made. The render was so choppy, and I don't think it even had a real background to it- I just filled the canvas in with red and slapped the render I cut on top. And then my sorta-boyfriend just about broke my heart by telling me how terrible it looked, even though I asked for his honest opinion.

    Good times.

    I'd love to have you find something and participate, too. Not that I don't find it interesting to see what Summoner comes up with, but you've been doing graphics longer, so I think the jump between the old and the redone sigs will be much higher with your work.
     
  15. EtherealSummoner

    EtherealSummoner Lamentations 3:22-26

    I went back and made it so that you can see it better. <_< I need to practice not to make my pictures so bright.

    But anyway, as for your signature, I already commented about your redone work in your new thread. I like your first one better because of the comments I made about your redone work (Left side bothering me).

    Now as for me, I will still redo my pictures but I want to study for my finals first. Lol about your boyfriend part. Still, you doing graphics for a year and a half... I thought you did it longer... like three to five years...
     
  16. Kitty

    Kitty I Survived The BG Massacre Staff Member Administrator

    Well, at the time I made the original FFVIII sig, it'd been about that long, maybe. I started doing graphics in 2004, and I'm guessing I made that sig in 2005 or 2006. Thinking about it, it's a little sad I'm not better than I am now, given how long I've been at it (though in my defense, I did take a year or two off from it), but then again I also don't really put a lot of serious effort into bettering myself. I just do what I want.

    Yeah, but of course he was right, because the sig really was terrible.

    I'll take a look at what you said when I get the chance, but I don't think I'll agree that the first is better. The more I look at the redo, the more I'm starting to like it. And the blending on the old sig is just off (and it looks like the top of Rinoa's head was cut off), and it's just so boring. I really like the coloring I used on the redo- it's supposed to look sort of like an old vintage photo, and I'm not sure if I really pulled that off, but I still think it looks nice. Thank you for your comments, though. I appreciate it.
     
  17. Remedy

    Remedy Remnant

    We'll have to do something about this garbage, you'll see it redone and smokin hot soon enough
    [​IMG]
    (within the next few days i'll get it done)
     
  18. EtherealSummoner

    EtherealSummoner Lamentations 3:22-26

    :( I don't think I did any better...
     

    Attached Files:

  19. Kitty

    Kitty I Survived The BG Massacre Staff Member Administrator

    Well, I do think it is better than the first version, as the first was so chaotic that I couldn't tell what was going on at all. But the first two versions of the redo are really bright- I don't know, they're just really hard to look directly at. The third is a little muted and easier on the eyes.
     
  20. EtherealSummoner

    EtherealSummoner Lamentations 3:22-26

    -.- It's alright. I really wasn't able to figure out what to do about Feral Chaos anyways... I'll just give up. Redid Ultimecia but I guess it doesn't matter...I'm depressed enough already from trying hard on these pictures...
     

    Attached Files:

Share This Page