Spent tonight doing some bridgeman studies, along with a pisspoor attempt at a still life setup on my desk.
I think bacons advice of slowing down and doing longer observational studies is helping. Im finding these poses to be more accurate in form then the ones i was doing a few weeks ago. yayy
no it doesn't match man. why do you even say that?
- you moved his head about 5 cm to the left of his torso.
- what happened to the space between his face and the mic?
- you gave him a new set of lips.
- his eyes are definately not rolled up in his head OR so far to the right that we only see the white of his eyeball
- where'd the cleft in his chin go?
- you can clearly see his chin tucked nicely into his right-collar in the ref. in your version it somehow turned into a 2 cm wide gap.
and that's just on first glance.
really, i want to see you improve, and there's no shame in showing something that's not perfect. But showing glaring examples of stuff that's really not very accurate and acting like it's something good is what really gets me.
last edit: really, sometimes i get the feeling you draw these very well known and unique looking people ( MJ, Jay Leno) just so it's still be recognizable to others.
How long do you spend drawing up the pencil lines before going at it with paint? Because, I mean, I spent about 5 hours pencilling up my last big painting and I was going from a reference - a drawing i drew myself originally!
no it doesn't match man. why do you even say that?
- you moved his head about 5 cm to the left of his torso.
- what happened to the space between his face and the mic?
- you gave him a new set of lips.
- his eyes are definately not rolled up in his head OR so far to the right that we only see the white of his eyeball
- where'd the cleft in his chin go?
- you can clearly see his chin tucked nicely into his right-collar in the ref. in your version it somehow turned into a 2 cm wide gap.
and that's just on first glance.
really, i want to see you improve, and there's no shame in showing something that's not perfect. But showing glaring examples of stuff that's really not very accurate and acting like it's something good is what really gets me.
Im not finished blocking it in yet. I was mainly focusing on getting the placement of eyes/nose/lips correct, and trying to get the scale right. Thanks for the point outs.
Im not saying its 'good'. Im saying its 'better'. It does match up pretty well when i overlayed it in photoshop. Not the actual features of his face, but i mean the placement.
last edit: really, sometimes i get the feeling you draw these very well known and unique looking people ( MJ, Jay Leno) just so it's still be recognizable to others.
I draw Michael Jackson and Jay Leno because i like them and they are a fun break from my other work. I dont choose them because they are easily recognisable to others.
How long do you spend drawing up the pencil lines before going at it with paint? Because, I mean, I spent about 5 hours pencilling up my last big painting and I was going from a reference - a drawing i drew myself originally!
Do you use a grid at all?
I take my original sketch, and blow it up in photoshop to the scale i want it to be on canvas. I flip it back-to-front, and then print on individual A4 or A3 sheets. I stick the pieces together. Then i draw over my linework in charcoal. I take that and place it onto the canvas (charcoal side facing down) and then i rub the back of the pages. Once i take it off, the images has been transferred to the canvas. I then pencil over it again.
*hope that makes sense.
i spend a while drawing it in. Its a pretty good method, though i can see the grid method working well.
I think the reason my head ended up so small orgininally was because i re-worked the image so much, that i lost the original scale/proportions.
EDIT: Heres an update shot of the Face. Its coming up to summer in AUS, and even with the airconditioner on, my paints are drying up very quick (im using acrylics - oils a pain in the arse it work with especially in a small area)
its getting better man. even just in terms of reading like actual forms. I think that's the best you can hope for - an improvement in making forms read well - rather than a photo-real or spot-on reproduction.
ESPECIALLY considering your highly fucking retarded process of getting lines on to canvas.
Take your original drawing. Draw a basic grid over it. draw that same grid on your canvas. then draw the lines from each square on your drawing on to your canvas. It will teach you how to stop looking at the content and start focusing on the lines. it will quickly familiarise you with the usefulness of negative space and recognising simple shapes rather than seeing the image.
ESPECIALLY considering your highly fucking retarded process of getting lines on to canvas.
HAHA. At first i read that as "especially considering you're highley retarded..."
I think you're right. Itd be silly to aim for photo realistic considering my lack of understanding of colour/values in painting. I went out today and purchased some new brushes (ive been using 80cent brushes ) so im hoping i can get better, bolder, more defining brush strokes with these new babies!
Awww man. Its a pain in the arse starting things over. But i guess its part of the learning process.
Ive started re-working the body. Its coming together. Keeping it more loose. That jacket is giving me the shits So many colours. Dont be surprised if i decide to give him the Beat It jacket
Itd be silly to aim for photo realistic considering my lack of understanding of colour/values in painting.
I think he said "silly to expect"....not "silly to aim for".
You aim to make whatever you'd consider to be the "ideal piece", and in this case, it'd probably mean "an accurate representation of Mr. Jackson". Your current painting is aiming for realism. Photo-realism? No.
...but judging by the overlays of the picture and your painting, you can't even get the "realism" part down accurately...and that's what you should be aiming for. Don't call it a day because you're "not that good yet olol". This is what you work to achieve. Skill is not gained in complacency.
I dunno - it's just that whenever I tackle a project, I don't think beforehand, "it'd be silly for me to do this, because I don't know how to do it yet". Instead, I think..."I want to do this, and even though I don't know how to do it yet, I'm going to try, over and over again, until I figure it out, and can".
You challenge yourself and do things you don't know how to do, learn from your mistakes, learn from your successes, and get better.
I know that this painting is some kind of a gift for a friend or whatever, but in general I would say that you shouldn't even be dealing with color yet.
And what happened to the Bernini study, or any other study like that? We've gone back to Michael Jackson and some awkward character drawings. Loose and fast.
How many time do we have to say to slow down and do things right?
NightDragon - I can see i misinterpreted Robots post. Cheers for the clear-up.
Scosglen - I admit, i've neglected the Bernini study, but its wrong to assume assume my recent character drawings are loose/fast drawings. I've spent quite some time on them. *though i can understand why people would see them as quick, half-arsed drawings.
This weekend i'll get back to those Bernini studies and post those bad boys up
And incase anyones still interested... update of my MJ. Almost finished. Yay! I got a load of white house paint and covered the entire bottom half below his belt. I used the grid method robots suggested, and worked directly from the original photo reference (rather than my pencil drawing). Time consuming, but more effective.
Gonna fix up his face now, and finish off his hand.
So i did the eye. It looks sooooo much better. I was crazy to think leaving it blank was a good idea. Cheers Manon!
Poor quality photo - my room has piss poor lighting. But you can kinda see it
Looks good winter - a big improvement over your other paintings winter. It seems to me that the problems with the form are related to the medium and the lack of time you put into practicing compared to your pencil work which has improved much than your painting ability. Consider doing some life studies in acrylics and in smaller scale measuring what is in front of you instead of portraits from images.
Btw his hair and folds in the clothing look pretty good. Keep at it, don't drop off the painting to just do studies (until "you're ready") and vice versa cover all bases!
Cheers Isaac. Ive had loads of trouble with the medium. Though my pencil studies have helped loads with my paintings (in terms of defining shape more). A massive learning curve i think. ive definately learnt the iomportance of starting with a solid, blocked out base drawing, before tackling it with paint. Next time ill use dersperaterobots advice and start with the grid method.
lol. also, my mate loved the painting. none of my mates draw or paint, so they are amazed with anything i do
I've never really been into Queen. I can appreciate some of the songs, but i think some of them have lost their charm for having become jingles for those aweful SA Lotteries ads and end-of-game AFL grand finals.
definite improvement. work on the hand more, the pinky looks broken (why is the tip bending outwards?). the fingers kind of look like a congealed mass. also, the neck seems really thick and ambiguously rendered right now.
and I'm going to be the one that repeats (as it's probably been said) that it'd be more worth your time to tackle anatomy alone rather than paint+anatomy+color. I know the feeling that it's not worth doing something if you don't know how to do it, and I disagree with NightDragon, because there's times when you try your damned hardest to do something and you just don't have the fundamentals to do it. you can't just smash your head against something over and over until it works perfectly. art just doesn't work like that for most people. in fact, in many forms of art, the more you try to make something work the more you ruin it and it's better to just set it aside, move on, and come back to it when you have a better grasp of how to approach it.
srsizzy on
BRO LET ME GET REAL WITH YOU AND SAY THAT MY FINGERS ARE PREPPED AND HOT LIKE THE SURFACE OF THE SUN TO BRING RADICAL BEATS SO SMOOTH THE SHIT WILL BE MEDICINAL-GRADE TRIPNASTY MAKING ALL BRAINWAVES ROLL ON THE SURFACE OF A BALLS-FEISTY NEURAL RAINBOW CRACKA-LACKIN' YOUR PERCEPTION OF THE HERE-NOW SPACE-TIME SITUATION THAT ALL OF LIFE BE JAMMED UP IN THROUGH THE UNIVERSAL FLOW BEATS
Cheers for the crits srsizzy. I cant do anything more because ive already varnished the painting and gave it to my mate on saturday. Since finishing uni ive been doing loads of anatomy studies, and theyve been really helpful. I still need to work from reference for most of my drawings, so i guess thats telling me i still havnt done enough. Ive been pretty relaxed with them for the last week or so. Doing them everyday has become really repetative and boring and very uncreative, so ive been working on my concept art practice studies.
Heres some designs ive been working on. if anyone feels like pointing out which ones are working best, id appreciate it.
may as well post this for a last update for today.
The image is looking a little dull at the moment and feels as though it's just a constant tonal range all over. The sun is setting so there should be some interesting shadows and contrast happenning ... even on a quicker painting like this it should be there.
Here's a rough paint over
Looking very good though, some different ideas from your other work and good experimentation with colour dude.
Cherrs for the paintover. I know what you mean. Im having trouble getting a balance between the lights and darks. Because its an evening shot, it should be a huge contrast between the light from the sun, and also the shadows from the trees/house etc. Ive done some more work on it. Its still not there in terms of correct lighting. (Also it might help if i start using references for the lighting :rotate:)
BTW: Your paintovers lighting reminds me of the Twilight Princess 'Twilight Realm'.
Posts
Anyway, heres some sketches i did this weekend... just to show im keeping up with the studies
lul
I think bacons advice of slowing down and doing longer observational studies is helping. Im finding these poses to be more accurate in form then the ones i was doing a few weeks ago. yayy
Dont say that! :P Cheers dude
Im thinking of importing a real one from the US. I hear girls go crazy at the thought of sitting on those vinyl seats
Character design i did tonight. Practicing my girls. Based on old space opera science fiction.
*im a sucker for that stuff
Ill finish the face tomorrow, and then carefully plan how to go about with the body.
EDIT: actually, it matches pretty well. reckon ill just need to fix the structure of the body a little
Them girls are turned on by that shit, seriously.
no it doesn't match man. why do you even say that?
- you moved his head about 5 cm to the left of his torso.
- what happened to the space between his face and the mic?
- you gave him a new set of lips.
- his eyes are definately not rolled up in his head OR so far to the right that we only see the white of his eyeball
- where'd the cleft in his chin go?
- you can clearly see his chin tucked nicely into his right-collar in the ref. in your version it somehow turned into a 2 cm wide gap.
and that's just on first glance.
really, i want to see you improve, and there's no shame in showing something that's not perfect. But showing glaring examples of stuff that's really not very accurate and acting like it's something good is what really gets me.
last edit: really, sometimes i get the feeling you draw these very well known and unique looking people ( MJ, Jay Leno) just so it's still be recognizable to others.
Do you use a grid at all?
Im not finished blocking it in yet. I was mainly focusing on getting the placement of eyes/nose/lips correct, and trying to get the scale right. Thanks for the point outs.
Im not saying its 'good'. Im saying its 'better'. It does match up pretty well when i overlayed it in photoshop. Not the actual features of his face, but i mean the placement.
I draw Michael Jackson and Jay Leno because i like them and they are a fun break from my other work. I dont choose them because they are easily recognisable to others.
I take my original sketch, and blow it up in photoshop to the scale i want it to be on canvas. I flip it back-to-front, and then print on individual A4 or A3 sheets. I stick the pieces together. Then i draw over my linework in charcoal. I take that and place it onto the canvas (charcoal side facing down) and then i rub the back of the pages. Once i take it off, the images has been transferred to the canvas. I then pencil over it again.
*hope that makes sense.
i spend a while drawing it in. Its a pretty good method, though i can see the grid method working well.
I think the reason my head ended up so small orgininally was because i re-worked the image so much, that i lost the original scale/proportions.
EDIT: Heres an update shot of the Face. Its coming up to summer in AUS, and even with the airconditioner on, my paints are drying up very quick (im using acrylics - oils a pain in the arse it work with especially in a small area)
ESPECIALLY considering your highly fucking retarded process of getting lines on to canvas.
Take your original drawing. Draw a basic grid over it. draw that same grid on your canvas. then draw the lines from each square on your drawing on to your canvas. It will teach you how to stop looking at the content and start focusing on the lines. it will quickly familiarise you with the usefulness of negative space and recognising simple shapes rather than seeing the image.
seriously, the way you do it is crazy retarded.
HAHA. At first i read that as "especially considering you're highley retarded..."
I think you're right. Itd be silly to aim for photo realistic considering my lack of understanding of colour/values in painting. I went out today and purchased some new brushes (ive been using 80cent brushes ) so im hoping i can get better, bolder, more defining brush strokes with these new babies!
Awww man. Its a pain in the arse starting things over. But i guess its part of the learning process.
Ive started re-working the body. Its coming together. Keeping it more loose. That jacket is giving me the shits So many colours. Dont be surprised if i decide to give him the Beat It jacket
I think he said "silly to expect"....not "silly to aim for".
You aim to make whatever you'd consider to be the "ideal piece", and in this case, it'd probably mean "an accurate representation of Mr. Jackson". Your current painting is aiming for realism. Photo-realism? No.
...but judging by the overlays of the picture and your painting, you can't even get the "realism" part down accurately...and that's what you should be aiming for. Don't call it a day because you're "not that good yet olol". This is what you work to achieve. Skill is not gained in complacency.
I dunno - it's just that whenever I tackle a project, I don't think beforehand, "it'd be silly for me to do this, because I don't know how to do it yet". Instead, I think..."I want to do this, and even though I don't know how to do it yet, I'm going to try, over and over again, until I figure it out, and can".
You challenge yourself and do things you don't know how to do, learn from your mistakes, learn from your successes, and get better.
I think you should be adopting that attitude.
And what happened to the Bernini study, or any other study like that? We've gone back to Michael Jackson and some awkward character drawings. Loose and fast.
How many time do we have to say to slow down and do things right?
NightDragon - I can see i misinterpreted Robots post. Cheers for the clear-up.
Scosglen - I admit, i've neglected the Bernini study, but its wrong to assume assume my recent character drawings are loose/fast drawings. I've spent quite some time on them. *though i can understand why people would see them as quick, half-arsed drawings.
This weekend i'll get back to those Bernini studies and post those bad boys up
And incase anyones still interested... update of my MJ. Almost finished. Yay! I got a load of white house paint and covered the entire bottom half below his belt. I used the grid method robots suggested, and worked directly from the original photo reference (rather than my pencil drawing). Time consuming, but more effective.
Gonna fix up his face now, and finish off his hand.
Dodgy photo though. Too big to scan
Now to sit back, relax and have a farmers union iced coffee
EDIT: Ok. actually, clearly it doenst work better. Im painting eyes now. Cheers.
Poor quality photo - my room has piss poor lighting. But you can kinda see it
Btw his hair and folds in the clothing look pretty good. Keep at it, don't drop off the painting to just do studies (until "you're ready") and vice versa cover all bases!
lol. also, my mate loved the painting. none of my mates draw or paint, so they are amazed with anything i do
and I'm going to be the one that repeats (as it's probably been said) that it'd be more worth your time to tackle anatomy alone rather than paint+anatomy+color. I know the feeling that it's not worth doing something if you don't know how to do it, and I disagree with NightDragon, because there's times when you try your damned hardest to do something and you just don't have the fundamentals to do it. you can't just smash your head against something over and over until it works perfectly. art just doesn't work like that for most people. in fact, in many forms of art, the more you try to make something work the more you ruin it and it's better to just set it aside, move on, and come back to it when you have a better grasp of how to approach it.
Heres some designs ive been working on. if anyone feels like pointing out which ones are working best, id appreciate it.
its based on some old painting which... i forget
pic i posted in the doodle thread..
Theres going to be little houses and a jetti near the river
The image is looking a little dull at the moment and feels as though it's just a constant tonal range all over. The sun is setting so there should be some interesting shadows and contrast happenning ... even on a quicker painting like this it should be there.
Here's a rough paint over
Looking very good though, some different ideas from your other work and good experimentation with colour dude.
BTW: Your paintovers lighting reminds me of the Twilight Princess 'Twilight Realm'.