General Chat / My drawings topic

^ Yeah, but when was the last time you saw fetus-shaped lake?

I've no idea what a typical Dutch city looks like, but when I think of a city, I think of a grid system. Kinda like NYC. Fairly easy to navigate, assuming you can get through all the traffic. That's one thing I hated about CA: The streets had names instead of numbers. It was hell trying to find a specific street because you didn't know where it was in relation to where you were. Here in IN, streets and county roads are numbered. It's easy to tell when you've gone to far and need to turn around.

Cool, I like all kinds of fiction, maps of fictional dutch cities included!

Thanks!

lmao

I like those drawings Liam, you seem to have talent in that area..
Makes me want to play Sim City

SF

Sim City sucks. Try pen and paper.

These cities all look really similar to me, would be nice if each one had a defining feature relating to the name... i'm thinking of the embryo lake in W.O.M.B by Mantis.

I'm planning to do that actually, but first I want to refine my style. Schaamstede is only my third finished drawing and I'm improving rapidly. In the first drawing I tried to make fortifications (the star-shape) but it obviously failed. The fortifications in Aarsdam are much better, although there are some stupid 'bays' in the wall (there are no walls left in Aarsdam except for one gate, but the old street pattern shows where the wall once stood. Schaamstede isn't perfect either, but for now I'm happy with it. I think this is the first time I pulled off a predetermined shape.

The next drawing won't be a fortified city.

I've no idea what a typical Dutch city looks like, but when I think of a city, I think of a grid system. Kinda like NYC. Fairly easy to navigate, assuming you can get through all the traffic. That's one thing I hated about CA: The streets had names instead of numbers. It was hell trying to find a specific street because you didn't know where it was in relation to where you were. Here in IN, streets and county roads are numbered. It's easy to tell when you've gone to far and need to turn around.

The old Dutch cities were 'designed' when America wasn't even discovered yet. Nobody could expect that a village with 100 poor farmers would evolve into a city with 500,000 inhabitants. Therefore, cities aren't designed at once. They expand and expand, hence the somewhat chaotic street patterns. Great example, Amersfoort:



Notice the inner ring (first wall, probably built when gained city rights) and the outer ring (second wall, city expansion).

Expansions are a nice opportunity for better organization... The newer the area, the more organised the street pattern. Fortifications can be extremely organised btw.



This random city has more cultural treasures than North America as a whole, indian stuff excluded. I love Europe.

Here's my hometown, just for the sake of it:



Notice the half star-shaped fortifications. The other half was designed, but never built. It's still visible in the street pattern however.

Based on those images, you seem to have a good feel for what you're doing. Keep up the good work!

I never kew my drawing skills. All the stuff I drew in the past few years have been fast sketches or just doodles that got out of hand. This time I'm quite serieus, and I'm curious to see the result. I want to know my current limits.

So far it is looking promising I think, at least it's better than all the similar drawings I did before (first post):

while it looks cool at first glance, when you look at it in depth, its actually really really sloppy.

sorry for being harsh.
i like it, but i honestly think that you can do much better if you take your time to really tighten things up.

such as varying the thickness of certain lines, making the perspective a bit more accurate[the big windows expecially], and adding in some shading.

^Pretty much what I think with perspective being the most glaring 'weakness'....most notably on the top left facade and the tower.

the perspective is fucking ace, well done with the proportion.

@In:Cities: It's not finished. The thickness of lines is varied (tower), the windows look worse due to resizing the image (they're not perfect I admit), shading and perhaps even colour will be added.

@K0NG: Partially agree. 'Klokgevels' and Gothic arches are really hard to pull of in perspective.

@SSSammy: Thanksss!

It's a drawing, not an architectural building plan..
So it doesn't have to be perfect in perspective, actually that would make it boring.
It's amazing as it is, so pleace don't make it a boring technical liniear thing..
The shading will be a nice addition though.

Nice to see some serieus drawing skills here.. Some inspiration from my side perhaps?


Btw: the drawing you have as your avatar, where is it from? I love medieval portraits.

Nice to see some serieus drawing skills here.. Some inspiration from my side perhaps?

I'm drawing facades all the time... But your drawing could've actually triggered me to do this.

Btw: the drawing you have as your avatar, where is it from? I love medieval portraits.

Don't you recognize the master's hand?

Now THIS is bad perspective. The whole drawing is pretty bad, but of course this is a 'random doodle that got out of hand'.

Wannabe-French Village

Nice details, but there are some places where the perspective is off. On both of the front buildings the right side is taller than the left. Also, the windows on the right building's side need to be raised if they're at the same height as the windows in the front. If your going to go all out on it, I suggest you make the perspective perfect before coloring and shading.

Really nice drawings here Liam. I actually made a 3D looking city in MSPaint during school all of last year. It kind of resembles New York in a way in that it is mainly grid-based. I'd love to draw a top-down view of cities, it's just that most cities here are grid-like. I'm just not used to the cool, curvy, somewhat scrambled looks of Danish, or German, or French cities. Would you just suggest looking at real cities on Google Earth or something?

Edited by MF72 , 30 March 2010 - 07:02 PM.

Don't you recognize the master's hand?

Ah! I was allready hoping for good old Anton Pieck.


Frensh village:
Actually when you would have done the de-formed perspective deliberately, this drawing would have been awesome.
It looks very frisky, perfect for a child's book.
But I think it was not intended.. Which makes it a bit unartistic.
but the use of colour is great, and it does have that potoreske atmosphere, that these villages have.

^ Everything he said. Man, your drawings are amazing, including the last one. Mabey I'll post some of mine too.

Update.

I never kew my drawing skills. All the stuff I drew in the past few years have been fast sketches or just doodles that got out of hand. This time I'm quite serieus, and I'm curious to see the result. I want to know my current limits.

So far it is looking promising I think, at least it's better than all the similar drawings I did before (first post):

I made some rough drawing during my trip to Curacao last year, because I don't like sitting in restaurants for hours.

Here's the first:



Very rough...


edit: The second one. Less rough, and I actuallly tried to add more depth, but still not entirely serious.

You are good at expressing architectural detail but you need to work on your perspective before doing anything else. Try drawing a 3-d box from different points in a perspective; it will help you get angles and locations right.

It's finished!

"Kruisstraat te Schaamstede"



Besides perspective, composition will be the main focus in my next drawing. I hope it doesn't take four months this time.

A request by Marino.