eldritch48's sketchbook

[eldritch48]

Today, instead of doing full body gestures, I whipped out some drawing anatomy books and did some arm studies. I can see I still have a real problem with hands!

Oh, and there are a couple of mouths in there too, just 'cause :)

[RickyS]

Those mouths are very expressive! :O You're definitely making huge improvements with these studies, so keep it up!

[eldritch48]

Poses were 1-10 minutes in length. Not my best day life drawing, but there are a couple I'm ok with.

[eldritch48]

here are some head and chest studies from this evening. I did a TON of 1 minute gestures in class today, but they were all with charcoal, and I left the pad at school ;)

[SketchyPages]

Impressive. The heads are improving with more studies(except a couple which are a little off). The hands should improve the more you practice. Love the poses. Keep it up!

[Riley Stark]

Good looking update! I agree with strawhat that your heads are improving. Nice gestures, but watch your proportions - most of the figures are a little short on the short side. Stretch them out a bit and you'll be rockin'. ^_^

[eldritch48]

Good looking update! I agree with strawhat that your heads are improving. Nice gestures, but watch your proportions - most of the figures are a little short on the short side. Stretch them out a bit and you'll be rockin'. ^_^

Thanks :) It was a tough session, the model was quite short already, and maybe I over-emphasised that. Harder to figure that stuff out when you aren't drawing ideal 8 head tall comic book characters :0

[north pole]

ur stuff is good.. well done.. but i think u should practice more on perspective.. then all of them are will be nicer and nicer.. (:

[RickyS]

It's impressive that you've been doing so many quick studies and life drawings! It might be helpful to work on a longer drawing over the span of a few days. That might help you with some stuff, but I dunno, it's up to you. :)

It would also be cool to see more environment like earlier in your sketchbook.

[eldritch48]

Heads and mouths.

[eldritch48]

It's impressive that you've been doing so many quick studies and life drawings! It might be helpful to work on a longer drawing over the span of a few days. That might help you with some stuff, but I dunno, it's up to you. :)

It would also be cool to see more environment like earlier in your sketchbook.

Thanks :) I'll try to do some environments this weekends...I'll be sitting at a booth at Emerald City Comicon all day Saturday and Sunday, so I hope to get a bunch of drawing in!

Been focusing on people just 'cause that's what I feel weakest in.

[SketchyPages]

I second that. More environments!

The mouths look good. The eyes on heads 9 and 10 are a little off. In fact, I tend to draw them much the same way (a bit squeezed together).

[Riley Stark]

Nice expressions with the mouths. They read pretty clearly as to what emotion/feeling should be associated with them.

Good work with your faces, too. I agree with strawhat that 9 & 10 are a little wonky, but nice work over all. I think that, in addition to squishing your eyes a little bit, you might be drawing your noses a hair too long. If you measure on your own face, your nose usually is about one eye-length from the bridge (just about eye level) to the tip. Yours seem to be a smidge longer than that and I think it's throwing you a bit proportion-wise.

[eldritch48]

I was at the Emerald City Comicon for the last two days, hence my lack of posting. Here are two sketches I did while I was there.

[Riley Stark]

Hope you had fun at Comicon! I've always wanted to go to one of those.. They just seem like they'd be a good time.

The detailing on the (iguana?) is wicked. Especially on the face. Pretty cool!

The figure is a little wonky on the proportions, but the costume seems interesting. It almost looks like it has Egyptian influences with the style of the top.

[RickyS]

These are nice sketches. Like north pole said earlier, I think you should work on perspective more because although the details are good (especially the lizard), they are flat drawings. The heads in post #260 are good because you took note of perspective and they look 3D, but you should do this for all you drawings. Remember everything is 3D, so try to draw them that way.

[eldritch48]

I've been shit-bad at commenting on everyone else in my SSG's stuff over the last couple of days, and I'm really sorry...tomorrow for sure!

Today I did some very rough lighting studies of heads...not trying for details, or even realism, so much as just thinking about more than just lines.

[SketchyPages]

I like the creature(iguana) in the previous post although it looks a little flat. It's good that you are blocking in the eye sockets for the head.That should really help your head renderings.

[RickyS]

It's okay about the commenting. Sometimes it's hard for me to comment at the end of the day because I'm tired and I want to sleep, haha. I guess if you don't have much time, a quick comment is better than nothing. Anyway the lighting studies are nice. Those studies will probably help a lot in the future.

[eldritch48]

It's amazing to me how I can NOT see the problems with some of these when I'm doing them. A couple of these picts really make me cringe, but in the interest of accurately showing where I am, I'm going to post them all anyway.

[SketchyPages]

Ah nice stuff. It is funny how we tend to not see the problems until we are done. Stepping back from the drawing every so many minutes is so important.

[eldritch48]

Didn't do a lot of finished images today, played around with a photoshop project to create an alien, and then did some gestures. #18's hips are too small :(

[Riley Stark]

The last few updates are pretty good. Nice gestures/poses in the last one.

I know what you mean about sometimes doing works that make you cringe when you look at them later, but it's all a learning process, right? Bad drawings can be just as valuable as good ones, though.. They're almost inspiring to look back on and see how much you've improved since then.

[RickyS]

I used to have problems seeing the mistakes in my drawings while I was doing them too, but there's a REALLY simple trick to overcoming this. All you have to do is flip the paper over, hold it to a light and look through the other side, or you can view the drawing in a mirror (if the paper isn't see-through). Since you're looking at the drawing "flipped" it makes spotting mistakes easier. Basically the drawing should look good either way, flipped or regular and if it looks strange then something is obviously wrong. But if you fix the mistakes and it still makes you cringe later then you need to work on your fundamentals.

Then again I think every artist hates their art from yesterday (even the pros!) so I wouldn't worry too much. Just have fun and make sure your stuff now is at least better than the stuff from a month ago and you'll make progress.

[eldritch48]

Yeah, I need to flip more ;) That, and take a few steps back...I find that on 18x24 newsprint, what looks good when you are 2' away looks like ass from 6' ;)

Sorry for my absence, my animation class final project is taking up almost all of my computer time at home with rendering. Here are some picts from the last several days.

[eldritch48]

From tonight. Picked up a new book on Sunday, "Force: Dynamic Life Drawing For Animators" by Michael D. Mattesi, and I'm finding it incredibly helpful. These are 1-5 minute gestures.

[RickyS]

Yeah, I got that book too and it's awesome! Those last few figures are really awesome. It looks like you learned a lot from the book already. Watch out for proportions though. It looks like you're drawing a lot of the legs too small and the elbow is generally aligned with the belly button (you have the elbows drawn too high).

[eldritch48]

*nod* Good point on the elbows, I'll pay better attention! Here's a head from today's drawing class, 20 minute pose.

[SketchyPages]

Nice Updates. I heard a lot of good things about the Mattesi book. I should check it out. The head looks good (except perhaps his right eye).

[Riley Stark]

Nice updates. I like the looseness of the lines in the figure studies - they have a nice flow to them. Like Ricky said, watch your proportions, but good work over-all.

On the head study - I feel like the eyes are maybe a smidge too close together? (Or maybe it's the eyebrows?) Foreshortening and odd angles hurt my brain a little at this point still, but something in that area seems.. pinched? Someone with a more developed eye than mine might be able to pinpoint the issue better. Also - don't ignore your ears! Adding all the little ridges and bumps on the inside of the ear will make it feel a lot more finished/polished than just shading the interior dark, which makes it feel a little flat.

[ceriously]

I really like the gestures in #276 - nice & loose. I do agree there are some issues with the latest head study, though. I agree with intrinsik that the eyes are too close together. I think this is because you've forgotten the edge of the eyesocket that is between the nose and the actual eye - particularly obvious on (our) right eye. Actually, there is no indication of the framing of the eye socket at all, on any side, and the eye itself is pretty flat because there's no feel for its spherical shape. There are a couple of issues with the neck as well - it doesn't really 'feel' right in its connection to the body because it's quite formless as it is. Obviously this is from observation rather than study so, yes, you could observe closer the model - but I also think it makes it easier to observe all these small nuances if you actually know they exist. I still really suck at anatomy but getting some knowledge of the muscles and skeleton has really helped me in drawing the figure from observation You're able to tell why those lines or shadows or whatever are there, so it makes it easier to draw them in the long run I think.

I really think your faces are improving lots though. I particularly like the small female one at the top of this page.

Sorry for missing a few updates here/not updating. I had a couple of deadlines to catch up with.

[eldritch48]

Done on VERY rough paper,maybe even hand-pressed...my sister gave me a sketchbook for my birthday, and I'm going to do one sketch a week in it to track my progress a little bit...probably during sketchgroup.

Today's topic was "Bad-Ass Weapons and the People Who Love Them"

[RickyS]

That is a great sketch! Watch out for the proportions in the arm though, the arm holding the gun is really long.

I also have something to add about the elbow proportions thing. I looked into it more and it turns out males have their elbows aligned with their belly button, but since women have lower waists, their elbows are actually higher than their belly bottons. If you look at photos and the Loomis book, then you'll see this (sorry for the confusion).

[Riley Stark]

Fun sketch! Good perspective, nice lines, good figure work.

I agree with Ricky that the arm holding the gun is looking a bit long, but the rest looks pretty good!

I do feel nitpicky about the way she's holding the gun, however. I don't think she'd be able to hold a gun that big with just the one hand like that. I think she'd have to have her arm draped over it (like a scarecrow) to support the weight / hold it against her because it's almost as long as she is tall. I don't think she'd be able to hold it on her back with one hand without hunching slightly to support the weight. If that makes sense?

[eldritch48]

Can't believe it's been almost a week since I posted. One more week in this semester, then I'll have some breathing room again...I've animated 40+ seconds of a rocket bobsleigh race this week ;)

Here are some sketches I did today when I was taking a break from the sleigh.

[SketchyPages]

I guess these figures are from your imagination. They're quite nice. Just pay attention to the facial features a bit more and a few more defining lines for the ear will go a long way.

[RickyS]

Wow a rocket bobsleigh race. That must be interesting! :O

On your female figures it seems you have the breasts too high. The nipple should be one head down from the chin and the bottom of the breasts sag a little beneath that. It helps to look at photos to see the shapes and relationships. The breasts are pretty much fat on the pectoralis muscle which inserts into the humerus of the arm. You drew the line up to the shoulder in some places which doesn't happen. Same with the male sketch #6. Instead of the arms going over the chest, the pectoralis should curve over and into the arm. Hopefully you understand what I mean (look at photos and muscle diagrams and it'll make sense).

[eldritch48]

Here are two picts from my sketchgroup meeting yesterday.

[eldritch48]

Here are some of my daily 20 gestures that I did this afternoon at the library, in between working on projects and studying for my art history final ;)

[SketchyPages]

Ah, I see this is what you mean by "energetic gestures". They do look expressive. I should try something like this next time.

[eldritch48]

Not inspired, but some nights you just gotta push through, you know? Here are 4 poses, somewhere between 2 and 5 minutes each.

[RickyS]

The girl in the third last post looks great! I think I mentioned this before, but it would really help if you did some hand studies from life. The first girl from the third last post has creepy hands. The best thing to do is to actually get a mirror and draw you own hands/feet at different angles and poses. You can also draw your hands at any time of the day since they're always in front of you, so there's no reason not to. I like the way you are drawing the curve of the spine in the latest gesture drawings. They appear to have more life. It sucks being uninspired, but it's good you pushed through because that's the only way to improve. Hopefully you will get your inspiration back soon so you can draw more. :)

[eldritch48]

I don't normally play with a regular pencil, this was kinda neat. Usually I use a lead holder, or charcoal.

[Riley Stark]

Nice gesture drawings/studies. I agree about just having to push through them (even when you don't feel like doing them) - they definitely do help you improve a little each time you do them. I suppose that's the silver lining, even when you lack the motivation to do them. (I find them to be a little tedious sometimes myself. I'd rather just be painting, period. But they are a necessary evil, right?)

Critique on your female forms - I think you need to study up on how breasts are affected by positioning of the arm/muscles. When a woman moves her arm, the breast on that side always moves as a result. If I raise my arm up, the breast goes up, too and flattens slightly because it's stretched. If I raise my arm to the side, the muscles under the breast pull and stretch the breast a bit. If I push my arms forward, it makes the breast a little more full because the area is compressed. ETC.

On your figures, the breasts are pretty much static, which is fine for most basic poses, but not for ones where there's movement. Take the two figures next to each other (the one where the woman has her arm raised, with the long flowing hair, and then the one underneath with the girl in the school girl outfit) - The first one has her arm raised, but the attached breast shows no movement at all. The school girl below her has a little bit of movement to her shoulders and the breasts are also the same. While you can get away with showing no movement in the second one (because the movement is so slight.. and because her breasts are huge) the first pose should really show the lift to the breast because her arm is so high (regardless of the size of the breast).

It's a small detail, but it'll help push the believability of your female forms.

[RickyS]

That's funny, I always use a regular pencil and rarely use lead or charcoal. I find you can get more variety and control with a regular HB pencil (plus they don't make a mess like charcoal...)

[SketchyPages]

The head is pretty neat. I too find that working with a regular HB pencil offers enough variations for you, but I guess that's also because I really haven't figured out how to work with charcoal yet.

[DMosias]

You have really cool photographs there. I also have photos that I took when I was in my photography studios both in the dark room and out there digitally.

One of your background scenes that you did digitally that I really liked is the mountains and the lake. They are good but try to play around with the contrasts and the lighting because the rocks have a lot of jagged features when you walk towards them or if you are on a trail.

Some of the pictures that you have remind me of going through Philadelphia because it is mainly industrial and there are a lot of shipyards there as well as Allentown. I also took different pictures of when I was in NY, Chicago and in Iowa. I have a background both being in the midwest and in the eastern side.

If you want to see them, let me know and I will try to figure out a time for what is best for me.

[eldritch48]

Here's a guy I drew today in my new sketchbook.

[RickyS]

I like the rendering on the latest guy. It seems more realistic. It also looks like your understanding of anatomy is better. Just watch out for the abs because they look fake and the shading is on the wrong side. Plus if the dude is that jacked then you should render the obliques more to balance his torso out. Otherwise good job on the pants. :)

[eldritch48]

...which is awesome, except it's too big for my scanner at home, so I had to come to school to get my last couple of day's stuff into .jpg format.

[Riley Stark]

Ah! Zombies!

Nice looking figure studies - the second one of the woman with her back to us particularly nice with the shading. Her legs are a little short, but it looks really good over-all. Your proportions are getting much better with each update.

Good work!

[eldritch48]

Trying to make some clothed figures, and work on shading at least a little bit. He's a little bit "Harry Dresden" I suppose.

[eldritch48]

When I see it on the screen, his left leg is annoying me. I meant for him to be standing with it resting behind him, but it looks more like I have him walking and the leg is just twisted wrong...oh well :(

[RickyS]

The figures from post #300 are great! I have trouble with clothing too. It helps to draw the figure underneath the clothing first, then add the clothing on top. Keep in mind gravity too. I just wished it were as simple to do as it sounds...

[Riley Stark]

Clothing is definitely tricky, but Ricky is right about drawing the figure first and then adding the clothing. Right now the arms of the guy in the trench coat look really funky (like he's wearing a really puffy winter coat underneath the trench or something), and the way he's standing is a little off-balance, but your general proportions look pretty good otherwise. I like the rendering on the trench (the belt area especially).

Good update!

[ceriously]

Yeah, the recent figure looks really good. I agree with itnrinsik about the arms; they look very awkward and I'm not sure why he would be holding his hands that way. You can always look up reference for these designs, just to get an idea for the pose you are attempting to draw. It would be helpful to try it out yourself in the mirror beforehand. I think you might have tried to draw the figure before the clothes but it would be better to spend more time on this so you have a stronger foundation to work on. I like the coat, though. It looks really neat.

[SketchyPages]

Love the figures in the previous page. Like the others have mentioned, the character in the last post looks to be off-balance. Nice rendering though.

[Avvatar]

You've definitely shown a lot of improvement throughout all these pages, that's always good to see! I think you should really try and push the structure and try and relay the form of what you are drawing a lot more, a lot of your figures seem flat. Also I am not sure how many of those studies you use reference for but they seem quite stiff and like you put too much thought into them. Basically I think they are missing the little subtleties that give them "life".

In terms of your rendering I would suggest laying down the basic values first in large blocks and go from there. In your last post for instance, I would guess that the trench coat is not the same color as his skin or his shirt, it was probably black or some darker color. If so try and communicate that to us, it will also create more contrast which is one of the most important aspects of visual art. Staying on the subject of contrast, you could push them quite a lot more, I don't really see any areas darker than 40-50% grey.

Anyways I hope you don't mind the critique, I hope to see more of your work!

[eldritch48]

2 weeks of vacation, and then I 'upgraded' my mac to Snow Leopard, and now it won't connect to the internet...#$#!!

Here are 4 sketches from my daily 20, uploaded via netbook.

[eldritch48]

Macbook wi-fi still DOA :( Here are some of my daily 20 gestures from today.

[eldritch48]

Started my concept art class at VanArts tonight, we had to do a value study based off a photograph. I chose a landscape, 'cause fruit didn't interest me very much :)

[Riley Stark]

Good looking updates!

Watch the proportions on your faces - I almost feel like your features look like they're sitting IN the face rather than ON the face. (Like concave vs. convex almost?) Try bringing them forward a little more so that they feel more 3D on the face. (I hope that makes sense. I'm not sure how else to put it.)

The landscape is cool, but I feel like you could push it a little more by adding some atmosphere -- if you make the buildings fade out a bit as they disappear into the distance, it'll give it some more depth because that's what usually tends to happen in space. I get a good sense of where/what things are so great job on that! Did you have a reference doing this or is it mostly from imagination?

[Riley Stark]

I'm coming here to nudge you into updating!

Nudge, nudge, nudge..

C'mon!

:hugsmile:

[eldritch48]

Busted, I've been away too long. Here's something I'm in the middle of.

[RickyS]

Hey you've been gone a long time, welcome back! That is a sweet character! A crit I have is the helm or hat he is wearing is crooked and the face could be defined more rather than being scribbled values. The pouch on his waist also looks a bit flat and out of perspective. Otherwise big improvement. I like the armor. Keep it up!

[Riley Stark]

Yay! You're back!

The guy is lookin' pretty good! The rendering is coming out well thus far!

Crits:

- I know he's got a bit of a collar around his neck that's hiding it, but I feel like the armor either looks like it's too big right now or we need to see some of his neck. It almost has the feel like a little kid put on his dad's clothes.. His proportions are correct, just the size of the clothing makes him look funky.

- The shin/knee pads are sideways right now, especially the leg on our right. That foot is facing totally forward, but the pad is facing at a diagonal away from us. I think if you correct that his posture will look more natural.. Right now it either looks like his leg is turned awkwardly or his foot is wrong.

- I would either adjust the angle of the pole or expand your canvas. The end of the pole is tilted right out of the picture which leads the eye right out. If you extend the canvas or adjust the pole it'll look better compositionally. ^_^

Definitely looking forward to seeing where this piece is going. Keep at it and post your progress!

[eldritch48]

So the background to this character is that he's the 15 year old child of a group of space marines that crashed onto a remote mountain planet...so he is wearing his father's armour ;)

[Riley Stark]

Well, that makes more sense then if he's a kid in his dad's armor. XD

It's starting to look more cleaned up, but I still feel like you need to address the shin pads and the directions they're facing and the pole leading you right out of the canvas.

You've also created some awkward tangents by adding the circle in the background behind him - you never want to have lines intersecting on objects that are different because it really flattens a piece out. Part of how we perceive depth is by having things overlap and when things line up perfectly (which rarely happens in real life) it looks uncomfortable and unnatural. The edges of the circle line up perfectly with the strap from his shin pad and (basically) his belt. I would make the circle either larger or smaller behind him so that it fixes these two tangents.

The bag on his hip looks like it's out of perspective and sticking out to the side, rather than resting against his hip. I think adjusting how the flap is sitting will help fix that.. (Make it more of a side view than a full-on frontal, maybe?)

His face is still looking pretty flat - even though it's under the shadow of the helmet we should be able to distinguish the curves of his face a bit more, I think. He should be receiving bounce light from the metal he's got all over him so you should be able to describe the features on his face a bit better because of that. I would also downplay the black around the edges of his eyes - he looks like he's got some eyeliner on right now and is more 'emo' than 'soldier'. XD

Other than those details, I think this is looking pretty good. Nice rendering, keep it up!

[eldritch48]

Here are a couple of things I've been working on in the last couple of days.

[Riley Stark]

Kind of a fun little concept for the city piece. If you were going to push this to a finished piece, you could really play up the lighting a lot more and make it really dramatic. If you've got that might lightning, chances are that's a pretty bad storm and you could really push your darks and lights.

The two drawings on the paper (cool paper, btw - what kind is it?) are interesting, but I have a few nit picks on both

- The first one: I like the hair and the face in general, but watch the shape of your eyes. Also, her eyebrows are feelin' a bit too severely shaped in conjunction of the softness of the rest of her features. They look like check marks instead of eyebrows.

- The second one: I like the hair a lot, but the face feels overly masculine by comparison (because the hair is so soft and feminine). It looks like a man in a wig (drag queen-style). I think it's because a lot of the facial features are kind of on the large/broad side (the eyebrows, the length/shape of the nose, the lips, the length of the face). Look at how much more feminine your first drawing is and then compare to your second, see where you went differently.

Can't wait to see some more!

[eldritch48]

Here's another of my less-than-they-should-be updates, this one based on the characters made popular by Charles Dana Gibson around 1900.

[eldritch48]

Another head sketch.

[eldritch48]

Spent the better part of 8 hours today sketching in coffee shops with friends.

[eldritch48]

Another head sketch, 'bout an hour's worth of working.