Nic's stuff. (li'l bit NSFW)

Nic

Hey dudes. My name is Nic, and some day I'm going to be a superfantastic artist. I want to make money with my artwork, have a website that will be well liked on StumbleUpon and all that great stuff. I want that.

As it stands right now I've been working on my drawing skills for the past six months and I feel I've made a lot of progress. My favourite artists (in no real order) are Norman Rockwell, Stephen Silver, and William Blake. There're others but that's not the point. Point is I want to be as good as they are, and I need you guys to help me!

TL;DR:I'm gonna post stuff that I've done, or stuff I'm working on, and hopefully you guys will give me feedback, don't be afraid to tell me to do stuff. I'm on my Christmas vacation for another two weeks and at this point no job; I've got time to burn and I'm willing to do just about anything in the pursuit of improvement. I mostly draw people, they're sorta my safe zone, I've been working on branching out. Maybe you guys can help with that.

Also I'll draw stuff for you, if you wanna fire me an idea you'd like to see.

I'm afraid I haven't got much in the way of a portfolio; I do mostly sketches, but here're some things:


(done with copic markers and multiliners, was playing around. And yes; it's Rusty!)


(Drawing in class! Got my copy of Blade Runner back from a friend, I think it's on the back of an on-air schedule. The girl at the bottom was sitting there so I sketched her; she liked it)


(Face sketches! Did these in November sometime)


(been doing a lot of pen-only sketches to work on my lines, and getting them on the first go. Dunno if it helps, but I like the result sometimes. Also I find it fun drawing people with bullets in their foreheads; is that weird? Also Nostalgia Critic)


(more of the same, minus bullet wounds, plus spike. And a dude who sorta looks like Lawrence Fishburne. Sort of.)


(Did this one last night in photoshop. Royale wit' Cheese!)

Flay

A quick question: how recent are all of these? One of them you state is from November, which is fairly recent, but criticism of old drawings won't be much help to you.

Of all these, the second set of sketches is probably the best, and the closest thing to what you should be focusing on at the moment - drawing from life. You'll simultaneously be training your eye and building your 'visual vocabulary' (that is, things you might be able to draw on when drawing from imagination).

You'll find a lot of relevant advice in this post, and I'd especially recommend checking out 'Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain' (ignore the psychology though).

You've got a lot of potential, now it's up to you to keep drawing every day. Aim for an hour or more - progress might be slow, but a year later you'll look back and see how far you've come. Keep it up!

Nic

Actually, They're all from between now and November except the one of Rusty; that one was late September. The Pen ones were from two weeks ago, and the set of sketches you're talking about is from a week before that. I'd show you some of my later stuff, except my scanner's at my college dorm. I'll borrow my brother's when I can. Otherwise, I'll be working on my tablet coloring techniques in between sketching stuff.

In the meantime, I've already read Drawing From the Right Side of the Brain, and it was quite helpful (I think I know what you mean by ignoring the psychology). I'm checking out the resources in that thread you linked me.

I spent a lot of time drawing faces from photos, or drawing my classmates' faces, I guess now I just have to build that for everything else. Over the past couple of days I've taken to doing still-life sketches of my desk and things around the house.

Thanks Flay!

Mustang

So far so good, but don't ignore the rest of the body. Try some full figure studies as well as some studies of hands, feet, eyes, ears, noses etc. Understanding the individual parts will help you when you go to draw a portrait/figure.

Daniel_Araya

Also, keep in mind that the eye is actually a ball that sits within a socket. Right now you're drawing the eye as a closed almond shape, but try to draw through the forms. Draw the eye as if it was a sphere, and then draw the upper and lower eyelids conforming to that sphere.

Nic

Thanks, Mustang, I'll be sure to post an update on some drawings if I can. I'm currently reading through Figure Drawing for All it's Worth by Andrew Loomis, and it's proving to be really helpful.

Daniel: that's something I never really noticed about the way I draw eyes; I'll definitely keep it in mind, thanks.

DMAC

The Loomis stuff should help as far as understanding the construction of the head/figure in terms of 3-D forms. Right now these heads all seem to be lacking that underlying structure. The proportions are pretty off in places, especially the super wide noses.

Nic

They are pretty wide... Thanks, DMAC!

I may or may not have bookmarked your DeviantArt last night.

Nic

Here's a couple for the Sketch-a-forumer thread:





Currently, I'm working on some eyes. I feel like I'm getting worse, ugh. D':

I think I'm gonna stop, go for a walk to the library and draw some people there.

DirtyDirtyVagrant

You know what helps? Don't draw objects. Draw shapes. I didn't understand what they meant by that at first, but now I think I'm starting to get it. I don't know how to really explain it because I'm not very good at it yet myself. Start simple, with big shapes, and then break it down. For the placement of some of your features all you need is a tiny bit of tone. No lines are required at first.

Keep your drawing loose for as long as possible, so you can spot mistakes and correct them.

winter_combat_knight

Keep 'em coming!
Mix it up a bit. Full body pose, portrait, front/side/back. Do as much as you can and vary it.

Nic

Thanks, both of you!

I'll post some of my full body sketches when I feel like I've improved enough to bring to you guys (so you can tell me what else to fix, per the norm). In the meantime here're these, again from the Sketch-a-forumer topic:

Nic

Submitted for the resolution challenge, drawn from a photo of me:



It's not perfectly accurate to the photo, but I think it shows improvement in my face structure and use of shapes.

Nic

Been working on some figure stuff. Tracked down some Burne Hogarth stuff (namely Dynamic Figure Drawing) and I'm wondering where it's been all my life.

The top one is from the book, the bottom is from a photo.

I've also been doing more face sketches from photographs:

Mustang

Try reading these, they'll help you out with structuring your heads.
head 1
head1.5
head 2

winter_combat_knight

I was doing Hogarth studies this time last year. Its really good for being loose, but i felt it didnt really teach much in regards to realistic promotions and shape. Its very stylised. Keep doing them, but also rotate between doing some Loomis, Bridgeman and Frank Reily.

Nic

Thanks guys!
Not gonna lie, being as bad as I am is quite discouraging, but that's not going to stop me from practicing.
I may suck today, but I know I'll get better if I keep working.

Nic

I'm curious if anyone would be able/willing to tell me what's right about what I'm doing, and what specifically I need to fix about the way I draw stuff.

DirtyDirtyVagrant

Like I said, work on drawing shapes. Instead of drawing a fully detailed head, try to draw the larger idea. I wish I had my tablet so I could elaborate.

Don't draw 'nose'. Don't draw 'eye.'

Draw circle. Draw rectangle. Find simple shapes in complex things. Draw lines and measure against other features. Like the eye in relation to the mouth. Where do corners line up and so forth? Give me a sec and I'll find an example.

And remember that shadows have shapes too.

E: This is from my thread. (Thanks Charis, wherever you are. I understand now)

Mustang

It's just practice dude, the more you do the better you will get. Reading, studying and trying to apply what you've learnt.

You're coming along fine, it's a bit hard to tell if you've developed any bad habits just yet. One tip though, you almost always make the upper line of an eyelid darker then the bottom eyelid. Also always keep in mind that an eye is a ball in a socket, not a football shaped sticker stuck on a face.

winter_combat_knight

I hope you're not getting discouraged...? What you're doing 'right' is that you're drawing! Theres probably nothing wrong with what you're doing at this stage. Things are off, oddly shaped, but thats something that will improve the more you draw (without even realising it sometimes). Its just a matter of keeping at it and taking it one step at a time.

Whether it's from life, anatomy/loomis studies, or you favorite scenes from Pulp Fiction, you MUST draw everyday, all the time if you want to see results fast.

Keep going. I want to see some John Travolta drawings!

lyrium

Good dedication, keep practicing! You're already improving

Nic

Thanks for the support, Guys!
Did a couple of figure sketches from this gallery (link NSFW).





And just because you asked, W_C_K, here's a quick sketch of Travolta at some press thing or other:



I'll do a sketch of him from pulp fiction when I find a good reference image.

Edit: I realize there're issues with angles of the parts of his face, but honestly I got a bit lazy with this one. I'll do it better later, promise!

Nic

This was me standing in front of a mirror for five or ten minutes making faces at myself.
Enjoy!


Also I didn't have my eraser in the room, so some of the mistakes are due to that.

Nic

Did some more female model sketches!
The one on the top I feel I spent too much time on details, so the four on the bottom were primarily to get the form. When I felt like I started to get too caught up in the details I moved on.
Overall I'm pleased with them, and I'll keep working on pose studies like this.

DirtyDirtyVagrant

Couple of those look like you're really starting to get it. Keep at it.

I like the one in the bottom right corner.

Nic

Thanks, Vagrant! That was the last one I did on that page, so I feel like progress is being made.
I'm definitely working on more of them.
Female form (and in fact human form in general) have always been something of a weakness for me, so I'm going to work on it as much as I can to strengthen it.
The ultimate goal will be to be able to fully draw the figure (including the head and facial features) as accurately and properly as I can, so I'm just working my way in that direction.

DMAC

Do you do any sort of underdrawing for these before you start placing details and your final lines? Sketching out the basic forms to get proportions and placement down? They kind of look like you just start in one place and start drawing the contours.

Nic

The two at the top, I didn't underdraw at all (the two at the top being the one on her tiptoes with her arms back, and the one slightly above it which was really me trying to understand what the lines of her arm were doing).
What I did was sorta ellipse some of them out them out really lightly, I erased most of them, and sometimes I sorta strayed from the ellipses I originally drew.
I'm still trying to figure out what works for me.

Daniel_Araya

i think that underdrawing would probably be a good idea for you. For the sake of having a clear understanding of how the forms are being constructed.

SkyGheNe

I'm not an artist, but it's really interesting to see how you're progressing in such a short period of time. Keep up the momentum.

Nic

Okay, I'll take your advice, then!
I reckon this is just the beginning for me in a long-running human figure study. I'm probably going to devote a whole sketchbook to figures alone, trying harder with each set of sketches to improve on the shortcomings of previous sets.
Of course this is in addition to practicing drawing other things, but I want to have a handle on the human figure so I can eventually move into designing original characters and all that fun stuff.
These are from yesterday, and again not much underdrawing to be had except for that small one at the bottom left (though that one didn't come out so great):


I'll work on doing them with under-drawings this evening, and I'll get better, promise!

Pukio

Lookin' good - it's really fascinating to see how you've progressed so far.

Something that you might want to do more is figure sketching where they're actually in contact with the ground. While what you've posted so far is good for line and form, the distribution of weight (especially re: grounding a form on a plane) is a really important skill to develop.

But in general, keep up the good work!

Nic

Thanks, Pukio!
I'm in the process of doing some grounded figures mostly composed of shapes.
I'd have had them done by now, but I've been feeling under the weather, and really needed a nap.
They're underway now, though!

Nic

Update:



I like these on the whole, but I think I'm gonna revisit the standing one in a sec, her legs don't quite seem right.



Are these the sorts of shapes I should be working with in my under-drawing stuff?

Nic

Annnnnnd fix'd (I did it last night, but then went to bed, so I scanned it this morning).

DirtyDirtyVagrant

These remind me that I need to do more gestures.

They are looking pretty good.

lyrium

A while back, Cake made some threads to help people draw the figure, and reading his critiques of other peoples drawings would probably be helpful. They start on this page. Also in the next one he made a video that's linked at the beginning of this post.

Nic

Thanks Lyrium, I checked that out. I'll continue to refer to it for my figure drawing stuff!
In the meantime, I moved back to my college residence today, and I've since settled in and gotten some drawing done.

I need to work on rendering the image properly as I see it.
Even though it's not super accurate, I still like this one, because I don't usually work with more than two tones for shading, or at least I haven't for a long time.
I think my problem is that I tried to get through the shaping of it really fast so I could get to adding in the tone. I think I'll definitely do this one again.

Nic

Few sketches of friends' faces from pictures of them.

Nic

Couple more sketches from Loomis, and Robert Downey Jr. The dude in the middle is my mum's cousin, he's something, something Catholic church, hence the outfit.