Lightning's quest for "mad art skillz"

[Lightning Storm]

Hello fellow artistes! I've been drawing occasionally for about 3 years now, and would love to get better at it.

I draw fairly clean drawings (no guidelines, etc.), and usually with no background.

I use paper and pencil, upload it into my computer via scanner, crop and re-size it in paint, use contrast and brightness in Photoshop to clean up the paper wrinkles etc., then clean, color, and shade in paint. I'd like to get a tablet to elliminate a few of those steps, but I'm still looking for a good one in my price range ($50 and below). Any advice is appreciated.

Now, onto the art!

I only have 3 pieces of art to show for myself as of now, but I'll be searching around for more. These 3 were all done this week:

Psychic Hitmonlee from the element changing thread.

Electric Gyarados from the element changing thread. (SHADING! gasp :O)

Pikachu laughing at Clefairy for not being chosen as the mascot. (Clefairy was originally going to be the Pokemon mascot, for those of you who didn't know.) (Not really trying to be funny with this, I just wanted to draw SOMETHING.)


Any and all constructive criticism is appreciated.

Thanks!

[Lightning Storm]

I return, bearing a Fakemon! BEHOLD!



It's a Dark type, and it evolve into a Dark/Psychic, which evolves into a Psychic/Normal. The evolution line is supposed to represent the 5 stages of grief, shortened down into 3, Anger, Depression, Acceptance. This one represents anger.

I don't know if I'm going to go for a whole fakedex or anything, but for now, I'm working on completing the next two stages of Angermon.

(I'm assuming that this counts as a meaningful update to my thread, meaning that it is allowed, despite it being a double-post. If I have misinterpreted the rules, I apologize.)

[Cheezerme]

I recommend a wacom tablet really any one of them the cheapest are about 70$ but worth it. definitely needs work though. The shading isnt right i recommend not recoloring it with paint it looks really choppy and all color isn't the most important thing.

[Lightning Storm]

Originally Posted by Fat cheezerme

I recommend a wacom tablet really any one of them the cheapest are about 70$ but worth it. definitely needs work though. The shading isnt right i recommend not recoloring it with paint it looks really choppy and all color isn't the most important thing.

$70?! Yikes. I was looking closer towards the $30 dollar price range.

Anyway, How do you mean the shading isn't right? And why should I not color in paint? What about paint makes it look bad? I would say that coloring is rather important, seeing as if you replace all of the blues and reds it looks really bland and uninteresting. I could try learning to use Photoshop, or see if I can simulate what Paint is missing in paint.

[CorporateInc]

um, the whole angermon thing= Digimon

[Cheezerme]

For thirty dollars you will have a heavy pen for input probably no levels of touch and a shiety tablet in genreal sorry sir.

[Lightning Storm]

Originally Posted by Fat CorporateInc

um, the whole angermon thing= Digimon

Wah? Is there a digimon that does something similar? Or does it just look like a Digimon?

Originally Posted by Fat cheezerme

For thirty dollars you will have a heavy pen for input probably no levels of touch and a shiety tablet in genreal sorry sir.

Hmm, alright. I'll see about maybe getting a more expensive one. Thanks.

[Lightning Storm]

CAP 9 ART COPYPASTA GO.

Eeeevil Carnivorous Stegosaurus [No-one said pokemon had to be realistic...]


Burrowing-Skull-Serpent-mon


I''m working on another idea right now, a weird demented stretchy arm tank kind of pokemon, I'll probably have a rough sketch up later.

As always, if anyone wants to tell me how to improve my art "skillz", I'd be more than willing to listen.

Later is now: