Very nice man, I saw your swords on Sam's stream, nice work! I'm really liking the challenges, hope you do more of them. The studies are looking good although I think you could work towards more confident strokes or maybe try to blend some forms out. Keep it up dude!
Yeah, I agree on the blending. Getting some clean forms will really push you in terms of being confident. An example: http://c-bedford.tumblr.com/post/120133581097/ill-finish-this-later In alot of ways, the painting is still rough, but the contor is clean, aiding the definition of the figure overall.
I suggest getting some master studies into the mix, as you'll be able to study both the technique and work on basic anatomy/shapes in the process. I think these are looking really good though, just need to keep pushing forward.
@F87 Thanks! I'm going to try and do the challenges as much as I can! Thanks for the tip, I'll try blend the forms a bit better! (Maybe I should switch up brushes after a bit)
@Iruka Thanks! That's a nice example! An yeah, I think I should mix in some master studies too.
Hey man! Haven't commented on your stuff yet so I figured why not So your lighting is getting nice, but I agree with Iruka that some of the forms are getting lost. If i blur my eyes everything looks great, but those nitty gritty details in terms of how the light transitions between different values is what sucks people in because those transitions define the form, texture, and material. I would try working with a brush that has its minimum opacity dynamics a little higher. Being able to work super light is nice when you're sketching, but the repeated strokes in a painting with low opacity tends to cause weird mixes. Corel painter mixes the colors differently, but photoshop gets that strange filter look in areas of low opacity that distorts values as they overlap. I'm not sure if Im explaining this right But it looks like you've taken a big leap dude. You're getting there, heck you even have a little subsurface scattering on that horned ogre's ear which is a detail I often forget.
The way that bicep is connecting to the forearm is super wacky. Forearm muscles are tricky because they wrap around the arm and twist in weird ways when the arm is pronated.
There's a good page here (NSFW there are boobs) that illustrate how the bicep relates to the muscles in the forearm. i.imgur.com/qlQMo8D.png
@ChicoBlue Thanks! I guess it's pretty obvious I have little clue how those muscles really work. I'll do some studies from the links you posted! Thanks man!!
Hello everyone! I finally scanned in some stuff. I Finished this sketchbook and two others at the end of the year, so I still have some more scanning to do. And also, here is a orc dude that's in progress.
@Iruka Thanks! I think drawing in my sketchbook is probably my favorite art to make.
Also, I forgot to post these things. Got super lazy when I got down to the legs, because I decided they were terrible. The shape language for them is not consistent, or unique across the three. I'll have to do better ones!
Sorry for the spam, but here's the last of the scans! Like I said, I wrapped up three sketchbooks in a frenzy at the end of last year, and here is the last bit.
All the gestures are 1 min.
Oh god, I have to hide these behind a spoiler tag. Just too much crap haha.
and here is a generic alien bust.
and here is some small progress on the orc
and here is a little process gif of the minotaur. It jumps at the end because I wanted to have the character separate from the BG, so I had to work on one layer.
Challenge yourself to use bigger brushes. If you can learn to work big to small, your studies will look cleaner and more finished earlier, and you wont be fighting for a long time to refine them.
I've been learning to do this myself more and more. For me, I have to convince myself that my hand is capable of putting it down the first time, and just go for it. Weeding out trepidation is hard sometimes.
The brush strokes are a looking a bit more confident, but keep working on it. The creative portrait is cool, but it's a little hard to tell what's going on in the mouth. It looks like the bottom lip has a big hole in it and you can see the bottom of the teeth through it and the points protrude out of the mouth along the top. If that's the case, the band of the bottom lip stretching across should show some stretching around the curve of the individual teeth since they are so big and round, and the bottom of teeth visible through the hole shouldn't look like a bunch of little teeth. SO I'm not sure if maybe instead it's not supposed to be a hole at all but just a goatee? It's just a bit hard to read.
@lyrium Thanks! I'm definitely going to keep working on the still life studies!
As for the dude, it's supposed to be a hollow lip disk, and then the teeth shapes on his upper lip were supposed to be face paint. Definitely confusing! I should probably just have had a different face paint pattern. The lip disk is probably confusing enough on it's own! haha.
@Sublimus I noticed were int he same town
Dragons Lair does a cosplay life drawing night every Sunday from like 7pm - 10pm. its kinda ghetto though as its just cosplayers posing with no real lighting or anything.
If you dont mind going downtown http://www.avaaonline.org/avaas-life-drawing-program is way more professional with legit lighting and everything.
Those studies of the gravestone and tower have a really nice feel to them! To get a little nit-picky, I'd find some reference for that bird to get the head/neck shape and legs right.
Great thread and really nice studies here! I wanted to point out something I've noticed about your work from imagination. The main thing that sticks out to me is that you often don't seem to be thinking enough about perspective when sketching out a character. Just about every character drawing/painting in here sticks to the same formula, which is a basic 3/4 view, with the camera seemingly at about the chest or shoulders line. Which is fine, but the issues is that your perspective tends to be flattened across the entire character, with for example each character's head or shoulders tilted at about the same angle as the skew of their feet. The result is characters who look flattened, instead of existing in 3D space. Definitely not always the case but it's something that I've noticed as a pattern. I also think you should generally consider varying your camera angle to help tell a story. For example, drawing the ogre from a low angle helps sell the story that he's tall and imposing.
So I've been teaching myself Blender and I just learned something that seemed very relevant, I hope you don't mind
So today I was watching some tutorials about controlling the camera in Blender and it was going over focal length. The basic lesson is that the longer the lens of your camera is, the more it flattens out the perspective of your image, like so:
Of course you may already know this stuff, but I know nothing about photography, so this was kind of a revelation to me. And after toying with it for a bit it hit me that it helps explain what I was talking about in that last post.
The way you drew the figure here seems to depict him with a very long lens, which flattens the perspective out over most of the figure (1) and gives you that "flyswatted" look. That has advantages and disadvantages depending on your subject matter, but for a dynamic character illustration you might want to aim for the more naturalistic short lens look, which gives you a more dynamic perspective (2). You can see it especially around the chest, shoulders and head area.
Here is some garbage from the last few days. Haven't made anything since I got this last crit from @lamp. Woking on it now, and I hope to show improvement next dump!
I feel like your eyes are a little lacking in structure, It works alright in your sketches because everything is suggested, but on your more painted portraits its more noticable. I'd suggest slowing down and getting into the particulars of how different eyes are shaped, and go deeper into defining how the lids are shaped.
You should do some quick painting studies from those. Also we should all go out there and try to paint! I've been wanting to do some super shitty plein air paintings.
The eye studies, they still seem to lack lids. Be patient while you look for the plane changes, and try include the details like, the crease above the eye, and such. The eyelashes in your ref may have been distorted by makeup, but the bottom lid usually has a bit of a line between the lases and the actual eye. Make sure your reference isn't too blown out lighting wise so you can really look into the anatomy. I think proko has a good break down on it: http://www.stanprokopenko.com/blog/2009/05/draw-eyes/
Also, I love that purple demon skull, but you could have probably guessed that.
Wowee, those are some gorgoeous shots. I moved to Seattle last year and we've done a lot of hiking this summer, so I've finally gotten to see some cool views of mountains and such. But those sheer cliffs are something else altogether!
Posts
"Final" swords (3 tiers of the same sword was the idea), and another study!
I suggest getting some master studies into the mix, as you'll be able to study both the technique and work on basic anatomy/shapes in the process. I think these are looking really good though, just need to keep pushing forward.
@Iruka Thanks! That's a nice example! An yeah, I think I should mix in some master studies too.
I'll be back with some sooooooon!
Not much to show, I was out of town for a bit. Time to get back to work, and stop slacking!
Here is a sketch jam from work. the prompt was "jet pack, laser gun, chainmail, tattoos"
And then here are two things I'm noodling on.
Finally finished this guy! in 2016 I want to finish more work, and post more online. So here is a bit of both!
I also scanned in a little over 50 images from my sketchbooks, and will post those soon!
Cheers!!
There's a good page here (NSFW there are boobs) that illustrate how the bicep relates to the muscles in the forearm.
i.imgur.com/qlQMo8D.png
Also, I forgot to post these things. Got super lazy when I got down to the legs, because I decided they were terrible. The shape language for them is not consistent, or unique across the three. I'll have to do better ones!
Sorry for the spam, but here's the last of the scans! Like I said, I wrapped up three sketchbooks in a frenzy at the end of last year, and here is the last bit.
All the gestures are 1 min.
Oh god, I have to hide these behind a spoiler tag. Just too much crap haha.
and here is a generic alien bust.
and here is some small progress on the orc
and here is a little process gif of the minotaur. It jumps at the end because I wanted to have the character separate from the BG, so I had to work on one layer.
and a little still life I did.
Like on that last one, there's not a whole lot of reasons that the front tube should have such messy edges considering there aren't any tonal transitions going on there. I think small object studies like that are great for learning to be confident with your strokes, just not as much going on as in figures. I Like these studies:
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/153755774755891893/
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/153755774755891891/
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/153755774755891888/
You can then extend that into people and refine the details as you go:
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/153755774755560147/
I've been learning to do this myself more and more. For me, I have to convince myself that my hand is capable of putting it down the first time, and just go for it. Weeding out trepidation is hard sometimes.
Thanks! Yeah, those edges really suck haha. I'll try and use bigger brushes!
facebook.com/LauraCatherwoodArt
As for the dude, it's supposed to be a hollow lip disk, and then the teeth shapes on his upper lip were supposed to be face paint. Definitely confusing! I should probably just have had a different face paint pattern. The lip disk is probably confusing enough on it's own! haha.
Dragons Lair does a cosplay life drawing night every Sunday from like 7pm - 10pm. its kinda ghetto though as its just cosplayers posing with no real lighting or anything.
If you dont mind going downtown http://www.avaaonline.org/avaas-life-drawing-program is way more professional with legit lighting and everything.
@WIckedkarma Oh cool! Iruka lives in Austin too!
Sorry for being lazy! Here is some stuff since the last post.
And a master study
So today I was watching some tutorials about controlling the camera in Blender and it was going over focal length. The basic lesson is that the longer the lens of your camera is, the more it flattens out the perspective of your image, like so:
Of course you may already know this stuff, but I know nothing about photography, so this was kind of a revelation to me. And after toying with it for a bit it hit me that it helps explain what I was talking about in that last post.
The way you drew the figure here seems to depict him with a very long lens, which flattens the perspective out over most of the figure (1) and gives you that "flyswatted" look. That has advantages and disadvantages depending on your subject matter, but for a dynamic character illustration you might want to aim for the more naturalistic short lens look, which gives you a more dynamic perspective (2). You can see it especially around the chest, shoulders and head area.
Cheers!
Here is the haul of junk from the last week. Doesn't feel like enough....
The eye studies, they still seem to lack lids. Be patient while you look for the plane changes, and try include the details like, the crease above the eye, and such. The eyelashes in your ref may have been distorted by makeup, but the bottom lid usually has a bit of a line between the lases and the actual eye. Make sure your reference isn't too blown out lighting wise so you can really look into the anatomy. I think proko has a good break down on it:
http://www.stanprokopenko.com/blog/2009/05/draw-eyes/
Also, I love that purple demon skull, but you could have probably guessed that.
Behold! A man who has no clue what he is doing! (So much to learn.)
And a little lunch sketch from today
And! I hesitate to post these, and spam with more photos, but I'm very happy to be done with them! Big Bend Texas! From March this year.