I'm keen to build a sense of community on Illuminatus, and also to make the board a useful art resource for GW fans. As a result, we need to make ourselves desirable, somewhere people can go and somewhere people can go for advice.

To this end, I've had a thought. Sometimes when people ask for advice on such-and-such-a-topic, the response they get is "check this book" or "practice". But there are some topics that can't be found in a book, some problems that plague budding 40k and Fantasy artists. I think it would be a neat idea if we could bulk out the tutorials section a little by combing our powers and writing a number of articles.

For example, "drawing a Space Marine", we could show how to construct a figure and then layer the armour over them. What the armour might look like in certain positions, what to watch out for, why a Space Marine is different to a normal figure. I know everyone has different artistic styles, but that's a good thing. We can say things like "If you make your Space Marines' heads small like (suchandsuch) you get this effect...) and can show different styles and ideas.

Drawing Orks, Bretonnian Knights - it's something we could work on to really give advice to artists. I've lost count of the number of times I've seen "how do I draw Space Marines?" on the Bolter and Chainsword.

I'm not after one of you guys popping up in the next few days with a finished article - that's impossible. But I think if we started a discussion topic where people could share their ideas, quick sketches and examples - we could use it to collate the basics of a guide that could really prove useful.

What do people reckon?

Sounds like a good idea too me Mol, always interesting too see how other people do it

I'm up for giving advice, though I cannot go through all the topics in this forum to check for things to give advice on (already spend too much time on forums as opposed to working) but what I CAN do is start a topic on how to draw certain things, where people can ask questions.


I'm actually about to start a litle tutorial on how to paint Space Marines shortly. Wa asked to do so on DA and this might be a good spot to do so.

I will most likely cover varients of spacemarines- tastes and concencus (i.e. what GW does currenly) and so on.


How about's that?

Thats sounds super Col :). I think that has been my main problem in doing space marines because i cant figure out which style i like most and so the ones i drawn in later times have ended up looking like some really bad mixture.

Col sent me a PM with his ideas for the masterclass and so I'm going to let him take the lead on it. Everyone can feel to contribute their ideas or suggestions. Once we've completed the Masterclass I'm going to try to advertise it on the Bell of Lost Souls, which should get us a pretty large audience! :)

Thank you guys and especially Colrouphobic, for getting this thread started:
http://z4.invisionfree.com/illuminatus/ind...p?showtopic=811

I really look forward to seeing how this comes along. I'd also be happy to contribute (time permitting), so if there is anything in particular that you are after, just give me a yell.

Good to see so much activity on this board now!

Thanks Schwager- first entry has been made: how to sketch the base form of the 8-headed Marine.
No armour in this installment, that comes next time.

Col, I really like how this is shaping up. The proportion advice was great, and it makes me realise that a similar basic guide for ordinary human anatomy might be a useful resource at some stage, especially because it's a frequent sticking point for people. Equally, I think perspective might be a useful one, perhaps. Any tips and tricks we can share to help make Illuminatus better would be welcome. From a selfish point of view, the longer we keep people on Illuminatus the better, so if we can direct them to useful and helpful advice here, then great!

The eight-headed sketch you've drawn looks really very hulking and imposing, and I'm keen to see how it ends up. :)

Really handy and useful, Col. I'm enjoying the marine tute and am already learning stuff.

R.

Cheers Mol, I'm not going to make this the fastest masterclass in the world you know..if people find it interesting you can count on it keeping people to this forum for quite a while.

Not really too sure where to add this, but I was wondering if I could request an Ork and Grot masterclass, their anatomy is SO different to a humans that I am struggling to draw them properly. So far what I do is study the models and pretty much draw what I see, but even then they come out more human like than I would really want.

cheers in advance