I will update this beast in another two weeks (August 3) [update 20/7]

BananaChips

So I'm a very very long time lurker, more than a year, maybe two. I've never posted before because most of my art was cartoonish and not even very good for cartoons either. I've recently decided to take my art seriously and have begun drawing from life and photographs. I'm not very good but the drawings I am about to show you are literally the first realistic portraits I have ever done, and I'm planning to do a drawing every day and post in this thread with them. Hopefully gaining pointers and crits from you guys? Haha. I'm fairly sure this is within the rules (and I know how you guys will rip the ignorant passerby to shreds.)


Here goes.

Bruce Willis Reference


Angelina Jolie (I didn't really like this one but didn't find it atrocious) Reference


Will Ferrel as Ricky Bobby Reference

bombardier

If you plan on posting at least a drawing a day, you will get better no matter what.

So all I can suggest is that you keep that up right now, build the habit (I know I should...)

Edit: I wish I could find that thread on conceptart (I think) that had this guy's sketches from when he started off with absolutely no drawing skills and posted stuff for like 6 years to this day and is now an amazing artist.

CyberMonkeytron3000

bombardier wrote:

Edit: I wish I could find that thread on conceptart (I think) that had this guy's sketches from when he started off with absolutely no drawing skills and posted stuff for like 6 years to this day and is now an amazing artist.

Ask and ye shall recieve

If this doesn't inspire people to keep at it, I don't know what will

bombardier

Yeah, that's the stuff :^:

Flay

You've definately got the right idea, practice will make an amazing amount of difference if you just keep at it.

Make sure to check out the stuff in the first page of the question thread as well; there's a pile of useful stuff in there, particularly the downloadable loomis books.

EDIT: Whoa... That link inspired the hell outta me.

*runs off to draw*

StealthNachos

That is one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. I hate to continue to derail the topic, but that just blew my mind. I saw the first page and was like, "He seems to know the most basic of basics, but I don't know how huge of an improvement 6 years can make." and then I went to the last page and the first thing I see is fucking unbelievable. That really does inspire one to draw everyday.

Banana, if that doesn't inspire you to keep at what you're trying here, nothing will. I know I'm going to start doing it now.

Edit: Also, Banana, not only is this within the rules, I really think this is the entire point of this forum.

Dangerous

Great idea! Keep it up It's things like this that inspire me to keep drawing every day. One pointer I will give you is to gesture things out first. Read all of the awesome figure drawing tutorials out there. On these you've done a lot of work on the tone which is good, but it's really putting the cart before the horse so to speak. You need to get a sense of the head as a 3D shape. Know where all the bones and muscles lay. A highly detailed photorealistic eye is awesome, But it loses all of it's impact if it's 3 inches higher than it should be, making your tom cruise portrait look more like Quasimodo.

Kewop Decam

CyberMonkeytron3000 wrote: »

bombardier wrote:

Edit: I wish I could find that thread on conceptart (I think) that had this guy's sketches from when he started off with absolutely no drawing skills and posted stuff for like 6 years to this day and is now an amazing artist.

Ask and ye shall recieve

If this doesn't inspire people to keep at it, I don't know what will

That is beyond amazing.

Hashy

I can't follow the timeline of that thread. He goes from painfully left-brain-ish rendetions of spoons and cups on page 1 to pretty damn good on pages 5-10 to jealousy-inducing professional by page 15. The rest of the thread is just him mastering various mediums.

MikeRyu

I have to say that I'm pretty inspired. I've always wanted to be able to draw but I've never been very good. I can't even write neatly, I have bad handwriting which is an heridetary thing which I have always chalked up to why I cannot draw very well. I don't feel like I even belong in this part of the forums and don't come here much. After reading this however, I think I might give this one drawing a day thing a try. Obviously I'm a little skeptical, but I'd like to think that if I can improve just a little then it'll probably be worth it.

Lewis Rice

BAM! Inspiration! That's incredible stuff. Totally keep up the everyday thing, whenever I couldn't draw something I just thought to myself that if I keep it up, within a few months I'll be great at it.

decoy_octopus

Have you ever thought about drawing real live people? Its much better practice that drawing from picture.

Kewop Decam

Lewis Rice wrote: »

BAM! Inspiration! That's incredible stuff. Totally keep up the everyday thing, whenever I couldn't draw something I just thought to myself that if I keep it up, within a few months I'll be great at it.

it's just like a sport. You'll only get better if you keep on playing. You can read about it all day, but until you perform, you won't grow

BananaChips

Sorry for the delay guys, a drawing a day should be a drawing a day! I had some family related issues come up and I became distracted, but in the end that's an excuse and it won't happen again! I need to work on my time management skills as well

Today's (rather, yesterday's) drawing is Morgan Freeman Reference



The left eye is pretty messed up, I really need to improve hair, and the goatee really shouldn't be outlined like that. And then everything else can improve as well. Also the ears are at different heights.

Larger version :

Tomorrow I'm going to do Robert DeNiro for a friend, then I'm going to see if I can start doing some drawing from life. To regular updates from now on!

EDIT: That guy from conceptart is really truly amazing, fucking incredible and inspiring! Even though I'm not planning on art as a career it really goes to show how much someone can improve if they stick at it.

Sam :)

Great initiative! I'm sure you will improve rapidly if you manage to pull off one per day. I've tried that many times... my current record is 3 paintings in 3 days, heh. So don't get discouraged if you miss a day or you just don't feel like drawing some day. Even one every other day is more han 150 per year, you know, and that is like 50 times more than the amount of drawing I managed to whip togheter in 2006 (damn World of Warcraft).

what an inspiring link, CyberMonkeytron3000, btw.

Godfather

A drawing a day will do the job, but if you REALLY want to improve at a much faster rate pick up a Burne Hogarth book; any of them will do. If you can gain an understanding as to HOW and WHY the figure looks and acts the way it does, you'll be able to draw twice as fast with better results.

Keep at it with the drawing-a-day tactic, but see if you can pick up one of these books on the side and read 10 pages a day (and when I say "read", I don't mean burn-on-through-the-pages, I mean try and absorb what you're reading. It really helps)

BananaChips

Thanks Godfather, I'll look for those books at the bookstore, and Ive downloaded the Loomis books to read

So here is Robert DeNiro Reference



My scanner tends to show the white and the dark pretty well, but not the inbetween, making it look really saturated. I did a better job on the hair this time, and that is one of the first realistic hands I've drawn so I think I did an alright job on that. I made the forehead a little too small though. Proportions are probably off by a ton but I'm working on them.

Large Version :

Kami

Hey Banana, keep at it. You're actually inspiring me to do some quick sketches everyday. :^:

I'll definitely be following this thread.

couch-potato

I'm being brutally honest, you are already improving - your Robert DeNiro sketch is proof. Keep at it old sport.

Projeck

Definite improvement. :^:

Greatnation

You can improve your skills very quickly with the right knowledge. If you are going to be doing portraits, it would be an awesome idea to study the form of the skull. Look for the big forms, the details will come later. After you have the large forms discovered, the details fall into place rather naturally.

Godfather

Greatnation wrote: »

You can improve your skills very quickly with the right knowledge. If you are going to be doing portraits, it would be an awesome idea to study the form of the skull. Look for the big forms, the details will come later. After you have the large forms discovered, the details fall into place rather naturally.

See if you can snag a book on facial expressions as well. I just bought one today, and while the price was steep (35 bucks), it does a damn fine job of explaining how and why the muscles do what they do regarding facial gestures.

anable

This thread is so inspirational, I've decided to stop making excuses myself. I do the whole prose thing though so I won't bore you with it, but thanks for the kick in the ass!

BananaChips

Well today I decided to try out the old draw yourself from a mirror exercise. It turned out pretty bad to say the least. A note, this drawing is not representative of my aesthetics O_o The tones and shading are also way off, seeming thrown in to the picture without rhyme and reason. I was actually sitting in front of some windows and the sun was going behind clouds and what not, but I doubt thats a viable excuse for it.



I found myself displeased with what I was drawing, and I began to lose steam and drive and it soon became a race to just finish the damn thing. Drawing from life (especially a mirror) is quite a bit harder than from a photograph. Hopefully by one or two months I'll be able to do the same thing and have it turn out quite nicely!

Corgi

I think it is harder to draw actual people, but better than a photo. Mainly because you're able to see the face and head from any point of view and with a picture, you just can't.... but it'd be awesome if you could.

Anyway, for me, when I draw heads, touching the person's face gives me a better idea on where how to shade the dang thing and umm... I don't know where I'm getting at. That sentence was just weird.

bombardier

From what I'm seeing here, you could probably use a nice dose of old Betty 'Ironside' Edwards.

BananaChips

I actually bought her book a few years ago and lost it immediately afterwards I looked for that book for a long time :P I'll post today's sketch in a few hours hopefully. If I don't finish it before work you guys will see it in about 8 hours.

Edit:

Here is the sketch for today, I didn't have much time nor do I have any time to talk about it, I have to go in aproximately 27 seconds!



(It's a morroca)

bread of wonder

Darken up those values. The bright white highlights are there but the dark blacks aren't. Your darkest shadow on there stands firmly in the middle-gray area, which is what makes drawings really boring. Try to stay in the extreme values, never in the middle. Also, the way you connected the handle to the spherical object suggests that it's not put on straight but tilted. You can avoid that stuff if you start out with a gesture drawing and make sure you have all the proportions and orientation of "parts" correctly placed before you move on to add definition and value.

MagicToaster

BananaChips wrote: »

It's a morroca

Maraca

BananaChips

bread of wonder: thanks, I'll actually do that next time!
Magic Toaster: Also useful information

I may miss Saturday because I am going away for a funeral service, but I'll try and do something in the car to make up for it and post on Sunday. As for the maraca, I don't feel I did a very good job on it, it was pretty rushed. I'll use more extreme tones next time, but one problem I have is when I make a dark tone, I guess because of whatever pencil I'm using the dark shades become lighter over a short period of time. It might be due to placing my hand over the area while I draw something else but I can swear it is happening either way.

The LittleMan In The Boat

Every time I try to do this I fail so miserably. I do it for about 20-30 days and give in to laziness. Please don't give in to it and keep up the good work!

BananaChips

Thanks for the encouragement LittleMan, I can really see my goals ahead of me and all I want to do is get there by any means possible! I think during the summer I'll do two pictures a day, or perhaps instead of pictures I'll set myself a minimum amount of hours drawing? Anyways, I did a cordless phone on my desk today, and I tried to use more extreme tones. My shades seem really, gnarly? Either because of the pencil I'm using or a method of blending I am clueless about :P





I'm doing two more portraits after this (Einstein and my Aunt), and then I'm going to start the human figure and see if I can't get some anatomy down.

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As a bonus, I'm going to show you guys the sketch I did of Jason Statham two days prior to the sketch I did of Bruce Willis. What you are about to see has never been shown ever before:



It really doesn't look a thing like Jason Statham, I'm not sure why it is so bad, I didn't draw once between this and Bruce Willis. I think I just had to warm myself up and get started and comfortable, so I pulled this out. I wish I had saved Jason for later though, he is the coolest actor out there. I think I'll redo this one in a few weeks after I improve a teensy bit.

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Also, there will be no sketch tomorrow because I'll be going away early in the morning, and coming back Sunday at about lunch. So expect one (possibly two) on Sunday!

Creambun 007

Your problem is simple. You shade your work. Now is not the time for shading, now is the time to get your line work down. Don't worry about value and tone and all that upper level stuff, focus only on contour and line and the use of negative space. Keep practicing!

BananaChips

Creambun: Took your advice doodor, one question though, how do I use negative space without shading? I assume you mean just use solid white and black?

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Big post today, I did three seperate things, so I drew for a few hours.

I downloaded the Loomis books and tried to do an exercise teaching correct proportions on the face, I got along pretty well until I got to the end where I couldn't get my drawing to really work, so I gave up on it temporarily after a lot of trying. (I might finish it tomorrow)


Large version:

Then I did a sketch of my hand, which I think came out really nice. It didn't take very long.



Large version:


Then I tried to get some proportions down, but I did this sort of weird, I looked at my hand and drew it into blocks roughly obeying the proportions of my hand in my head. Then I did the same thing two dimensionally, and drew the hand over the structure, then I looked back at my hand and wrote down correct proportions I hadn't factored into my other sketches.



Large version:

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Turns out instead of staying the night away I came home at around 4 ish, so I was able to get these done.

And also a question, my cousin says that I should spray my drawings with hairspray to preserve them, I can see how this would make sense, is it a good idea?

Fallout

Wow. Hell of an improvement.

Iruka

I've never heard of people fixing pencil sketches. You usually worry about that with bigger pieces and stuff with looser smudgey media (chalk pastel, charcoal, and such)

BananaChips

Iruka wrote: »

I've never heard of people fixing pencil sketches. You usually worry about that with bigger pieces and stuff with looser smudgey media (chalk pastel, charcoal, and such)

Makes sense, but say if I for some reason wanted to save one of my pieces (regardless of reason or medium), its safe to say that spraying it lightly with hairspray is a good idea? I won't need to for a while but its nice information to have.

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Today [June 3rd] I didn't give myself a lot of time to draw so I decided to draw my friend who had to go home in 20 minutes, and now its 12:00 at night. I wouldn't pay much attention to this one, I think everything is off.



Expect something a lot nicer tomorrow, and a question, is it OK to double post to bump a topic in a situation like this (had to edit in my post because no one posted after me), or should I just edit?

Fallout

If you're posting new stuff I don't see why not.

BananaChips

Apologies (mostly to myself) for missing yesterday. In my own defense I had about 4 hours of homework to do after school, and that I was working from 6:00 - 11:00 didn't help.

I did two today though!


Thumbnail is weird



Desk lamp that is way out of proportion, I had trouble sizing it to fit the paper and stay in proportion, then I sort of went off on my own.

Big Luke Nasty

In the last one, the head of the lamp seems to be pointing away from the viewer, while the foot is pointing more towards the viewer. At an angle like that, we should be able to see the inside of the head. where the bulb and whatnot is.

Aumni

I think thats one of those adjustable lamps that are used on drafting tables, it could be pointed away from him. I

to the OP I definitely like your commitment thus far, you've already seemed to improved. Keep up the great work man and don't give up