Artist Soits... art - updated 12/10/2010 - mainly non-SW art

Your favorite is my favorite, you've got to finish that baby!!

 

All of your work is simply stunning. Utterly beautiful.

 

When I saw that first pick of Padme I was stunned. WOW!! It's as good as any star wars art I have seen. I'm putting it in my memory bank as one of the top 5. It's got an emotion to it that makes it enjoyable to look at.

 

WOW! Those are so beautiful! Every one of them! That duel is so dynamic I can feel it.
Awesome job!

Marmida

 

FalconFan,
Thank you for the compliments, I always appreciate you dropping in to comment. I'm too vain to show the really bad attempts, the ones where the bodies were out of proportion with the legs, or the ones where the head sat on the shoulders so badly it looked like he'd had an accident. I'm not even going to talk about the problems I've had with the hands. I drew more than ten pages of figures before I got one that I thought looked right. Figure drawing is tricky.

One thing I did find useful was doing an image search for Michelangelo's David. You can get lots of different views of the same body - very helpful for your knowledge of anatomy.

The armour was mostly suggested by the illustration DarkSithDrew posted with his request; I altered it a little because bits of it I didn't understand well enough to draw. I love armour, got lots of books on the subject (including the Lord Of The Rings: Return of the King art book, some great armour designs in there) so it wasn't that difficult.

Ty_Ordell,
Thanks, I came down with The Paralysing Fear, a frequent killer of my work. Once I start to like a drawing too much before it's finished, I do tend to suffer a loss of courage. I'll go back to it and see if I can see it through to completion this time.

Mysticool, HawkHeadKentil, Marmida,
Thanks guys, always nice when someone stops by with a compliment. I hope to see a lot of your work in the future.

 

I finally finished colouring DarkSithDrew's roleplaying character: Jedi

I really should do something about the saber blade to make it all glowey, but I'll have to read up on how to do that. I should also put more tonal values on the legs, but I'm feeling a little burnt-out on the picture at the moment.

I've got to say, colouring my b/w picture using the computer was so much harder than I thought it would be. I have total respect for all those people in this forum who do this kind of thing regularly and make it look easy - I had no idea!

The textured shirt the knight wears was a Corel Photo-Paint texture, ditto for his cloak.

Related pictures/versions/working out:

jedi2 This is almost identical to the finished version except for some tweeking of the chrome armour

headshot This was when I was trying to get the face-tones right; I thought the hair might be difficult to achieve, turned out to be easy

gauntlet This is what the gauntlet looked like before I added the black reflections

gauntlet sketch This is the sketch I originally based the gauntlet on; it's an old one from one of my old sketch-books, I copied it from a photograph of an actual piece of armour that I really liked; I changed the design quite a bit for the roleplaying character, but this is its genesis.

I'd like to thank DarkSithDrew for being so patient, I took much longer to get anywhere on this than I had originally thought.

 

stop it! you're making me jealous! j/k
I guess i cant really explain how bloody amazing your work is!! I love it sooo much... even so you dont mind if i have this picture as my wallpaper? that'd look so cool!! I Love your work!! especially those paintings... what did you use to make those? it looks like watercolours.. but the paper looks weird..
I LOVE, LOVE yer work!!! <3

 

Geez, soits, that's fantastic! I can't believe all the work you put into this piece--from the research to the roughs we saw earlier to the final colored version--awesome! DarthSithDrew must be ecstatic over this--wonderful work! I really admire that you went to the effort of learning to color in the computer for this--it's something I've stubbornly avoided approaching at all (techno-phobic, I think...)--you did a fabulous job with it, too: the shading and color on the armor and the hair are perfect. Bravo!

FF

 

FalconFan & HanSolo29,

Thanks for the compliments. I have computer-coloured before, about three years ago I attempted to colour a scanned page of a B&W comic-book, but it was pretty basic stuff. I found this to be much more difficult, probably because I was doing it for someone else.

Although, using filters does look a heck of a lot easy than going in and blending everything manually

Yes, I have the horrible feeling I've been a bit stupid. I've heard you guys talk about filters and layers, but I don't know what they are. The software I've been using are all free demos, most being four or five years old: PSP vesion 4 (shareware), Corel PHOTO-PAINT!4, and Photomagic (dated 1993). I guess I'm showing my age; when I was a teenager, 16-bit computers like the Amiga were cutting edge, and nobody had a scanner, they were too expensive.

I've been porting the images between the three programs (each one has something the others lack), and saving the unfinished images as uncompressed bitmaps. I should really buy a propper graphics package, I suppose. What is everybody else using?

labpizza,

I've just looked at your art thread and I think your work is fantastic. The way you simplify your images so you get the basic shapes, then go all stylised on things like clothing and hair, thats exactly what I was trying to do for my Duel design. I find it really difficult; you on the other hand seem to be knocking them out at top speed. It took me more than a month to get a design for The Duel that worked, I'm betting you are producing designs much faster than that.

The paintings are water-colour, with some acrylic and pencil work thrown in too. I've textured the paper with a few things, including gesso and glue, but it makes it really hard to work on - very unpredictable, and often frustrating. They tend to look better scanned than they do in real-life.

Oh, and you are very welcome to use any of my pictures as wallpaper, it's nice that people like them.

 

Soits...I love your artwork that much. I decided to make a request, but I take it you don't deal in requests am I correct? Although, I still love your art work, it reminds me of what my brother used to draw ages ago. Fantastic.

 

FlamingBladeSaber,
I got your PM, and I'm fine with drawing your character. I tend to be a little slack at responding to PMs (and getting the work done) but I will talk to you about it later, OK.

 

It's all good buddy, take your time. Also, if your used to drawing Anakin, you should be able to grasp what I'm trying to get at here. Just change some of the basic features like the scar on his eye and the robotic arm. Pm me for details, although I covered it mostly on the PM I sent you.

Most appreciated Soits!

 

Work in progress: RPG character for FlamingBladeSaber

FlamingBladeSaber has yet to choose a version for colouring, but this is what I've got so far:

Sketch page
I traced the central face from the above sketch, then quickly drew in a body here
Then I inked that figure on several other sheets of tracing-paper, trying to get it right: 1 , 2 , 3, and 4

Different pose without robe: Original sketch-pad rough,first inking attempts on tracing paper, finished B/W version

Other roughs

Loose drawing 1
Loose drawing 2

Misc. sketches

Face lighting
Robes

---

These are a few portraits I did of Padme some time ago. They were all based on the same photo, I traced the likeness to start with, but as you can see from the differences in likeness between each picture, the underlying pencil lines quickly got buried the more that I painted.

[link=http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v316/rnart/pdme0.jpg]1[/link] The first, most controlled, and consequently the best likeness

[link=http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v316/rnart/p9.jpg]2[/link] ; there is something wrong with the mouth in this one

[link=http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v316/rnart/pdmnewe7.jpg]3[/link] I love the colours, I just wish I could remember how I got the effect. Bad likeness though.

 

Those are INCREDIBLY AWESOME!!!!
Espesially the Padmé ones!

 

Woooow. Your poses have real life to them, and its real like... fluid, you know? Great work Soits!

 

Your sketches are incredible. The loose geture lines give everything so much life and it's great to see all these original poses and expressions.

Your Padmé paintings have beautiful texture and I love the colouring. Wonderful stuff, soitscometothis!

 

I really, really appreciate seeing "how" you work, soits--the wonderful preliminary sketches, all the way to the finished piece...just wonderful! You have such a beautiful fluidity in your sketching--loose and easy--it seems to really lend to the ease in the figures you finally achieve. And your Padme paintings....waaahhhh!!! They're so beautiful!!! I love the colors, and the eyes are just stunning in the realism--just beautiful! It's wonderful to see some more paintings (I still adore the ones in your first post! )! This is great stuff (and thank you-thank you for sharing the "process"--it really helps me, to see how others work!)!

FF

 

I like your sketches a lot! Keep it up!

 

Excellent work Soits! I love the newest stuff, and that you post all your work in process.
Please post more!
-Arsnl

 

Soitscometothis! Man, have been missing out since I've been away! Your stuff is awesome! I love the Padme faces, so cool, they remind me of frescos. Beautiful!

I also really like how you posted your sketches too. I've been asked by a couple of people in the past how I begin a drawing and I was thinking of doing this too. Your style is top notch!

Great stuff, I'll be visiting often for your updates!

Later,
~DZ

 

Whoa! Your rough sketches are beautiful. I love to see how you work out forms and poses.

Your latest Padmé portraits are wonderful. I think you did a superb job on the likenesses and the colors on them just draw me in. Very warm and inviting.
You mentioned something wrong with her mouth in the second one. The only thing I can think of is maybe her bottom lip is a tad too full? But it's really not a big deal at all. It looks just like her. And I have to comment on how well you've gotten her eyebrows down. Fantastic!

 

Updating with a coloured version of the RPG character:

 

i can't tell you how much i love your work!! and looking at it is so fun!!!
all your sketches make me go.. I dont know but WOW!
And i have to tell you that all your sketches are an inspration to just grab out a sketch book and do lots of sketches of my own.
Again! i'll tell you that i enjoy looking at your work so much!
I really love the drawings of Padme you did!! i think i've alredy told you that to do such a thing you must have a supperior knowledge of anatomy, you most probbaly do!
and thanks for letting me use your picture as my wallpaper too!! <3

 

Wow, that looks awesome, soits!!!
I love the robes and sash, the way they're moving in this--I can almost feel the breeze lifting and swirling around him. The coloring and shading are just beautiful--I particularly love how you've shaded his face: it's very realistic, and gives him a very "solid" look. Your requesters must be falling-down delighted with your renderings of their characters--I am, and they're not even mine! lol!! Beautiful...just beautiful!

FF