AinuLaire's avatar

AinuLaire

424 watchers159 deviations
95.8K
profile views
Artist
  • Dec 30
  • United States
  • Deviant for 19 years
  • She / Her
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Ninja Llama: Llamas are awesome! (871)
birthdAy '10: decade of deviousness
My Bio

I'm a 21-year-old wannabe art-type currently studying for a BA in arts; I expect to graduate in 2012. I was born and raised in Southern California and love it dearly. My name is Finnish; my mom was born and raised in Finland. My father is an American "mutt". I'd have it no other way.

I am the eldest of four. The youngest was adopted from China in 2007 and I tend to talk about her quite a bit. She's one of my greatest inspirations.

I'm also a huge Lord of the Rings and Tolkien geek, if my journal and gallery were not enough hints. Tolkien has changed my life, as cliche as that sounds. I began writing and drawing because of his influence, and now I aim to get into the film industry due to Jackson's films on his books. That must count for something. And yes, I am in love with Aragorn. His lack of reality makes no difference.

I'm a really open person and willing to talk about basically anything. Feel free to send me a note whenever you want. Aww

Current Residence: Middle-earth. Or SoCal. Wherever my mind happens to be at the time.
Favourite genre of music: Rock, 'Nu Metal', soundtrack music
Favourite style of art: Traditional, Digital
Operating System: Windows Vista. Bleh.
MP3 player of choice: iPod <3
Wallpaper of choice: Anything with Aragorn ^^
Favourite cartoon character: Zuko <3
Personal Quote: Practice makes perfect; since perfect does not exist, you will always be practicing.


Favourite Visual Artist
Alan Lee, Ted Nasmith, John Howe, Monet, da Vinci
Favourite Movies
LOTR, naturally. Also like POTC, The Dark Knight, Coraline, Princess Bride, Monty Python, Pixar...
Favourite Bands / Musical Artists
Evanescence, Nightwish, Linkin Park, E Nomine, Howard Shore, Breaking Benjamin...
Favourite Writers
JRR Tolkien. Also like JK Rowling, Shakespeare, Poe, Neil Gaiman, Alice Sebold
Favourite Games
Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy X, and LOTR Online
Tools of the Trade
Pencils, pastels, paint, camera, photoshop..
Other Interests
LOTR, Tolkien, writing, fan fiction, drawing, painting, photography, photoshopping... and Aragorn :D

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Pageviews95.8K
Deviations159
Watchers424
Watching152
Favourites5.2K
Comments Made10.6K
Comments Received1.9K

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Comments

:star::star::star::star::star-empty: Overall
:star::star::star::star::star-empty: Vision
:star::star::star::star-half::star-empty: Originality
:star::star::star::star::star-half: Technique
:star::star::star::star::star-empty: Impact

I understand you had limitations that you set on yourself (or were some part of some sort of challenge), but for the sake of the critique I'm going to ignore them. I also found the original photo for comparison.

Your hatching is very good- better than my own. You really have control of how light or dark you press the pencil, which I really admire. The lines also move consistently with the shape of his face, so really, excellent job with the technique. The only suggestion I have is more of a subtle transition on the shirt to the white paper instead of the slightly jarring instant black to white.

Now in the original photo, his face is much closer to vertical than you portray, and his cheek doesn't dip in as much into the eye. The nose is a little too pointed here, and perhaps just a tad too long, though it's hard to tell since the angle of his face is different here than in the original photo. His ear here looks a bit funky, and it would have been nice to see tones in the beard; the lighting in the original photo is really cool with it.

In the end, especially considering the limitations, it's still a very good likeness to the man, and you captured his appearance and definitely captured his eyes, which is one of the most important parts of the picture. Well done.
The Edge - Speed Drawing
commented on Aragorn by
:star::star::star-half::star-empty::star-empty: Overall
:star::star::star::star-half::star-empty: Vision
:star::star::star-half::star-empty::star-empty: Originality
:star::star::star-half::star-empty::star-empty: Technique
:star::star::star-half::star-empty::star-empty: Impact

I am very familiar with this image- this poster hangs on my wall- and I am comparing this to that as I write this critique. My critiques tend to be incredibly nit-picky, so please do not take it personally.

To start off, there is certainly a general likeness- I recognized it as Aragorn in the thumbnail, and I recognized that it came from the poster. You have a good use of lights and shadows throughout the whole picture, and you captured his eye rather well- he has the right look in his gaze. Nicely done there.

Now for the nitty-gritty details:

Your ref: You mentioned in your artist comments that you went off the DVD cover. If that is the only reference you used, I seriously suggest to not use such a small reference again, unless you have no other choice (and with this specific image, it's all over the internet in higher-rez than what the DVD cover offers). So, in the future, try and get the clearest references you can. Heck, use Photoshop or another editing program to make any digital reference even clearer (there are tutorials here on dA on how to do that). Summary: Avoid small reference pics!

Composition: Plan out your composition before drawing it all out. That way the face won't be awkwardly cropped due to running out of paper. Draw out thumbnails and/or a light outline of the whole composition so you don't have forced cropping as you do here. We really should see his whole face and part, if not all, of his hair on our right.

Proportions: Or, is everything where it's supposed to be and the right size. Again, I'm looking at the original pic (the poster version) as I write this. Neck, our left, should be nearly vertical. Less of a curve/slightly more vertical on the edge of his ear, our top left. A lot less of an angle on his hairline from the ear up (in other words, more vertical). His horizontal hairline needs to be less of a line and more of individual strands coming from individual places; hairlines are not anywhere that perfectly aligned. Eye should be slightly closer to the ear. Face overall needs to be less wide than you have it. His neck, our right, should be slightly more to our left.

Shading: This image has a really strange, grainy texture applied to the whole of it that, when you try and apply it to paper (as I see you did), turns out just looking a bit off. What you want to do is, if you are looking for a photo-realistic portrait (rather than stylized or textured as done with stippling or hatching) is use blending tools such as a stump, shammy, or even a q-tip or tissue, to blend in the different values. Human skin tends to be incredibly smooth and every shadow, again if aiming for a photo-realistic picture, should portray that and the shadows need to blend smoothly with one another, whenever you move onto a new value.

On a final note, I'd recommend to use more values than simply a 2B pencil. You can get some wonderful darks with darker pencils in certain areas (like getting the hair darker, for instance, which it should be).

Recommendation: Just keep on doing more portraiture! I've done hundreds over the past half-dozen years, and I can guarantee you'll keep on getting better with practice. I hope this critique proves to be of some use to you in the future.
Aragorn
Hah, one of my sketchpads recently fell apart, so I empathize with you there! Oh yea, be careful with how dark you make the lines XD Still, well done :)
Mariah Carey
I wrote this critique before taking a glance at the rest of your gallery, so yea, when I saw the lack of lined paper I figured it was something else :D I haven't used smooth bristol board myself (I'm cheap and I'll take the sketch pads :la:), haven't ever tried the bristol stuff, and for now whatever I'm using works well enough. Eh, if anything, perhaps some random person will come by and see the warning against lined paper ;P

Oh, yea, definitely be careful about grids- I've used grids in the past to translate like, a 3 by 5 onto 18 by 24 paper, but you definitely have to go lighter with the grids and erase them completely ^^ Good to know what they are!

With photoshop you can also add your own, less conspicuous watermark, if you still want to identify the picture. You can put it right on her lower neck, so it's not in the face but can't really be cropped out like one on the corner can.

No prob ^^
Mariah Carey
:star::star::star::star-empty: Overall
:star::star::star::star-half::star-empty: Vision
:star::star::star::star-empty::star-empty: Originality
:star::star::star::star-half::star-empty: Technique
:star::star::star::star-empty::star-empty: Impact

Okey dokey, I wasn't able to find the exact picture (after an admittedly short search), but I do have a picture of her in the same general position so I can add some commentary...

The dA copyright symbol does really obscure a lot of the picture. I'd recommend coming up with your own watermark, or not bothering with watermarks with images such as celebrities (since I'm pretty sure it's illegal to make prints of a drawing based on someone else's copyrighted photo without explicit permission, at the least...)

Anyways, good job on getting down the general likeness. The eyes, nose, and mouth certainly resemble hers, and they're positioned in the right spots on the face (for the most part, I can't tell completely but it looks like her nose and mouth don't align completely). The chin up to the end of her jawbone is a bit off, but chins were always the most difficult parts for me for the longest time. Best thing to do is just keep practicing.

In general, you can still keep on going darker on darks, and the shading can definitely be blended in more with the skin for a smooth look (since it seems you're going for a realistic rather than stylistic approach). Good on the details, for the most part (and you can likely get even more detailed with the hairs, skin, etc, especially with shades).

The biggest problem is not your drawing techniques so much as the paper and the digital copy. From what I see, it's drawn on lined paper. If there's an explanation for the lines, leave a note in your deviation's comments about them and what they really are. If it is lined paper, don't do it again. Seriously <img src="e.deviantart.net/emoticons/let…" width="15" height="15" alt=":P" title=":P (Lick) - :P"/> Nothing is more unprofessional than showing a finished piece on lined paper. As a club mod I don't accept any pieces where I can see the lines, no matter how wonderful the piece is. Sketchbooks are cheap and easy to carry around, and if worst comes to worst, there *is* always computer paper (though I don't recommend it). So yea, ditch the lined paper and keep lined paper for scraps only.

Also, the digital copy really doesn't show your full skills. Your darks are dulled and lights non-existent, while I assume they exist in your original. You can fix these with any photo editing program. If you don't own something like Photoshop, you can always download something like GIMP for free- just Google it. While you're at it, you definitely want your picture to be straight, and if you don't have a scanner to put it straight in, photo editing programs should have some sort of rotation thing, as well as cropping tool.

Best of luck with your future pieces!
Mariah Carey