Forums → Art, Music, and Writing → My first serious drawing.

and now .. (sorry) you better watch the edited one that looks so much better
[url=http://img194.imageshack.us/i/dsc04378copia.jpg/]

I screamed out loud.

I apologize for not being on and posting any more drawings/sketches of mine, I have not had time to upload and then post...as if it matters to you haha
I just drew this like 2 hours ago, I don't think I've ever drawn my own hand, or any person's hand for that matter. But this is for a grade, so I was wanting to post it on here first and get the opinion of the artistically inclined. Thank-You

Wow i'm sorry, i did not mean for it to be THAT large

The hand is rather good, but I don't like the shading. It doesn't seem very smooth.
Try to keep your pencil strokes going in the same direction.

There is the highlight, the lightest value, the shadow, the darkest value and the midtone. The midtone is everything between the highlight and the shadow. These values have to blend into eachother smoothly.

Shading isn't hard, it just needs practice. You could try shading simple things, like boxes or spheres.

Here is a shading "tutorial"

I hope that you will find this helpful.

One last thing, I have an art thread here too, so I would love hearing your opinion about my drawings.

@Goumas13 Thanks for the tips, it was hard to shade because i had to draw this during school so i was switching in between classes so i kind've just estimated the shading, i will definitely check out both of those threads!

A bit choppy but, you'll get the hang of it over time. The important thing though is that you've got potential.

A bit choppy but, you'll get the hang of it over time.

The important thing though is that you've got potential.

Here's the last hand I've made, some two or three months ago. I'm seriously thinking of giving up medecine for art these days...Anyhow, I know it lacks some depth substance/range, but surely you can get something out of it.

http://armorgames.com/community/thread/5489610/fallenskys-pencil-art-thread/page/12

Now, as you said, it is true that everyone has potential; you're just one that has started exploiting it. I sincerely think art is less innate than music for example. The only thing that could be considerated more innate is the sense of proportions but in my opinion, everyone can learn to shade. Now, let's talk about that hand. It seriously needs some remodeling. Hand are what I specialised into when I was younger since I seemed to have some talent to do it. I always hear: ''hands are the worst thing to draw'', so I practiced.
I looked at my hands and drawed them so much that now I don't need them anymore to figure out how a hand would come out from a perspective. That hand is rather good, but if you look at yours, is it similar?
The tips are almost larger than the base of the fingers, which shows the lack of proportion. My second critic is still ragerding proportion; the middle finger is one of the largest, it's on par with the index in size yet here it seems very feeble to me. The ring finger on that drawing looks way more imposing than the middle which is strange. I know the effect came out of playing with perspective; perspective in drawing is very hard to fiddle with I know....Now my last tip would be that the first phalanges of you hand looks a little too long. I know they're longer, but they're proportionally oversized in lenght here compared to the other ones.

So here you, I know I'm being harsh, but at least I'm being constructive, which I think will help seeing how it helped me when Dan went hard on me.
Work some more on the nails too, but other than what I've said, you've got the basics down, and the overall shape is okay. I know, I know; drawing hands is though...

[url=http://armorgames.com/community/thread/5489610/fallenskys-pencil-art-thread/page/12]

Sorry, here's a working link.
And sorry about some of the messy parts; It's a bad habit I have of not rereading my posts before posting them.

How strange that it doesn't work...Oh well, just copy/paste and go check it out

And sorry for the spam ^^.

The tips are almost larger than the base of the fingers,

the middle finger is one of the largest, it's on par with the index in size yet here it seems very feeble to me.

The ring finger on that drawing looks way more imposing than the middle which is strange.

my last tip would be that the first phalanges of you hand looks a little too long. I know they're longer, but they're proportionally oversized in lenght here compared to the other ones.

Ok, ok, let me tro to clarify...

The ring finger on that drawing looks way more imposing than the middle which is strange

However you put it, it's virtually impossible for you ring finger to look larger than the middle one, which it does on this drawing.
I was not talking about the shading; it really is drawn larger.

I was not sure if you were talking about the fingers themselves or the tendons, but either way, again I am a very thin and tall person, with long fingers (&quoterfect fingers for the piano", as my grandma always says), and the tendons can be clearly seen from the middle joint of the finger down to the end of the hand.

Woops sorry, I hit submit by mistake...

Firstly i would like to say, yes I know my hand drawing is not perfect haha. I am a very very slender person, for my height i am underweight. But upon looking back at my hand the tips and the bases are basically the same width, with my joints &quotopping out" on the sides.(if this is what you meant)

I know what you mean, I have the longest and slenderest fingers/hands of my family so I know what you deal with. I've had so many: why won't you play guitar or piano?
Well...because it's costly what else; I'm a student in college...bummer...
But even though, it's still physically impossible for the tip of you fingers to be larger. I understand that they might be on par with the width of the base, but they can't be bigger; that's the law of the human body. The joints can however.

I was not sure if you were talking about the fingers themselves or the tendons, but either way, again I am a very thin and tall person, with long fingers

Well, I don't really know how I can be clearer...You've had some biology class no? You know how the bones of the hands work? You have three phalanges in each of your fingers ( can't bend your finger into more than three distinct part right ) The first one, at the base of the finger, joining the finger to the hand, is the longest. It's called the proximal phalanx. Here though its too long. I'm not saying you don't have long hands, I'm saying that proportionnaly to the rest of the finger's phalanges, they are too long. You might have long hands like I do, but even though you can't have proximal phalanges that big compared to the other ones.

May i ask if you were using a sort of special drawing pencil? I've also seen people using like a piece of rolled-up-to-a-point paper that they used to sort of shade, I don't fully understand that, anyways, my point is; how did you get your shading to be smooth like that. (i just remembered the link about shading in a previous comment, i will visit that later in case you feel like you would be repeating what it says)

Sorry, I didn't notice the question. When I do long posts, I tend to forget things and post again and again ^^.
No, actually, I was using regular pencils, costly ones but regular. Mars lumographs if I'm right, an F and a...2H if my memory's correct.
The shading looks a little darker than it actually should because of photobucket's auto-adjust, but except for the tint of the shade nothing else's changed from the original. You can obtain very smooth shading by using the side of your pencil to smudge, but it's an amateur technique that will only get you that far. I'm trying my best now to use hatching as a way of shading but it requires a lot of talent of practice; it's the pro's technique as Dan would say. My advice would be to try and smudge but always remember that there's an even better way to shade. If you want to continue in art and be a successful artist, you'll give up smudging for hatching when the time comes. For now, try and smudge with a shade, for example a 2H, and try re-smudging with a darker shade like an F or an B where you want to make things darker. That's how you'll have smooth looking shading