Training montage- Updated January 20th 2013

[SamC]

New Stuff On Latest Page

I'm Sam Carr. I'm 19 years old (I started this sketchbook when I was 14) and I have a strong interest in a career in illustration and concept art. Had just been drawing shit before now, now I'm seriously trying to get good. Please crit.

[SamC]

And here's some of my studies as of yet. I'm kinda embarrassed to post the self-portrait, as anyone who had actually seen me would laugh at how distorted it is. I have the features, I just can't seem to get them in the right places.

[SamC]

Just drew these. Really pleased with how the new self-portrait came out, my art teacher taught me how pick out tones properly. I was feeling a bit down after the last self-portrait, so I'm really glad I've come a bit closer to nailing it. The rest are studies of anatomy.

[sinneart]

Great start! Good to see you're already working from life and studying anatomy... keep that up! First thing I would at least start to notice/work on is your quality of lines. I see that you have the signature "chicken peck/scratch/scribble" method of putting down lines... try to make every line count when you're drawing... dont worry so much about getting it "right" straight away - but try to make your lines as long as possible - over time they will become more and more accurate and you'll gain confidence much faster than if you continue with the scribble method. Eventually you can then start playing with line weight and shading to show form as well.

Keep it up!

[Miles_]

Hey Sam,

yeah the guy above me is right on with the thing about having confidence in your lines, really try to work on long flowing confident lines, it can add so much to the piece. I sent a ton of info in a PM, cya in school sometime,

Miles

Oh and of course, keep it up! your work shows lots of potential :D

[SamC]

Hm I'm not exactly sure which lines you mean. The shading or the outline? Could you explain it a bit more? Thanks.

-Sam

[SamC]

Sorry for not posting yesterday, drew all day but never got around to posting any. Finally understood the line thing, the difference is very clear, although I kept accidentally reverting back to scribble. Also, could anyone tell me how I can add text in between my attachments?

-Sam

[Miles_]

Ah yes, sorry for not making it clearer, I meant as in outlines ect. One way to think of it, is that a line is simply a simple way to mark a sharp edge where there is a value shift. I hope that makes sense because I can't really think how else to explain it at the moment :P Basically on things like the eyes and lips, you don't need to add lines all the way round, just in the most obvious value shifts. Try looking at some other artists line drawings to get a better idea of what I mean and how they use line, especially on the face. Anyway, looking good, just keep on giving it time:}

[The Sceptical Saint]

Nice start, you tackled a couple of difficult poses there.

I'm kinda embarrassed to post the self-portrait, as anyone who had actually seen me would laugh at how distorted it is. I have the features, I just can't seem to get them in the right places.
Do some proportion studies; Go find some books, websites, whatever that break down every parts relative size. Or grab a photo and grid it up, draw a centre line, lines across the brow, end of the nose, edges of the eyes etc and see what lines up with what. It'll click, just keep hammering away at it :)

[SamC]

Thanks for the support and advice guys, it keeps me going :D. This is today's batch so far, I'm creating a list of my weaknesses and hands are definitely on it. I did some Bridgeman study but I'm having trouble applying it. I did another self-portrait, which I think is better than the last. With the apple drawing, I need help making the difference between tone and actual color clearer, any advice? Also, I'll ask again, could anyone tell me how I can add text in between my attachments? Sorry for the essay :(

[Adrian Wilkins]

ah man i think you're going just the right way, keep on studying
that's what i should have done when i was 14 :D

those last hand studies are great!

I'll keep on stopping by
to give some advices if you like

and thanks fore posting in my SB


cheers!

[Miles_]

Yeah thats what I'm talking about with the lines! If you are having trouble with faces I always love to do photo studies and look at other artists work.

Already the selfportait looks better, keep doing them when you feel like it.

Okay, with regards to values. Everything you see through your eyes, or in photos ect, is all varying degress of values, hue and saturation. If you imagine value is how dark a shade is, ranging from black to white. Hue is the actual colour of the object, and saturation is how intense the colour is. I.e a light, greyish red, is high value, red hue, and low saturation. Hue and saturation are basically affected by the lighting temperature and colour, and the base colour of an object. trying to take in all the information about colour at first can be a bit overwhelming, and I still struggle with it, so its easiest to start just thinking of value. So when you are drawing something from life, just in your head think of all your different values on a scale of 0-1, 1 being black, and 0 being white, and everything else a shade of grey inbetween. when you are drawing it think to yourself, what shade on my value range is that tone. then shade it in as close to the tone as you can.

Just keep on enjoying yourself and it will all come eventually. Keep it up friend, cya sometime.

[SamC]

Hygami: Thanks man. Yeah it'd be great if you could keep popping in

Miles: Yeah it is difficult to get my head around :P Thanks for explaining, it's making more sense now.

Today's batch is mainly study from yesterday. I spent most of today starting doing a life drawing of this huge flowerpot, looks good so far :D. Tried my first proper digital work with no lines, looks like turd because it's a weird pose and I didn't use an outline. And the grass should SO not have been green. Anyway, enjoy :P.

-Sam

[Man Made God]

Nice start, good to see you're hitting the books.

You could push the values more in your pencil drawings. Notice how you have pure white but hardly any pure black? Almost all of your rendering is gray, use some softer leads to give things more contrast and volume, your darkest darks should be black.

Your figures lack structural rhythms, or gesture. Be sure to focus on perspective, basic proportions and gesture, anatomy goes on top of all of that. Bridgman will help. Also check out Vilppu. And posemaniacs (Google it).

Keep the studies frequent and varied, but don't forget to have fun :)

[NothingReallyExists]

Your most recent sketches are already starting to look WAY better than those originals you posted from your firsts you up'd. The Bridgman book REALLY, REALLY REALLY REALLY helped you! CONTINUE to pick up every book you come in contact with! Read the text on techniques... try to copy their work (DONT trace).

Most important thing you can do is keep everything blocky and rounding/smoothing should be the last thing you do. The blockeyness will help your structure and make your images seem more believable. In humans or other organic forms, when we view the images, it is it's blockyness that gives it it's "form" or "boney" appearance.

Do not worry so much about texture.

Focus on line-weight and varying it (sometimes you dont need to outline everything, rather imply where the line should be)

Go find a stick out in your backyard... something thats more blocky than more rounded, and turn it in to blockyness and build it up to being something more... then bring in shading only when you feel its absolutely necessary. Heres an example of my work:

http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/9307/draw2whitewoodbranchchaxm1.th.jpg (http://img406.imageshack.us/my.php?image=draw2whitewoodbranchchaxm1.jpg)http://img406.imageshack.us/images/thpix.gif (http://g.imageshack.us/thpix.php)


One of the best rules you can live by is that the big picture needs to be completed before you can add all of the pretty details that we all love to see (toes, fingers, hair, holes, ect.)

[SamC]

Man Made God: Thanks for the advice with the values, I really hadn't thought of that. It really helped with the flower pot picture. I spent today trying to do some work on figures, but I'm not really sure how to achieve gesture. I attempted a figure in perspective, but I don't understand how to put a person in perspective without having them look slanted.

NothingReallyExists: Thanks for the praise, it really helps. I'll bear your advice in mind, but I'm not really sure about the blockyness. I just tend to see organic images as round objects from the start. Anyway, I will try.

I'd just like to say first off that I'm starting to feel frustrated with myself, I feel like I have no clue where I'm heading with any of this, and I have no clue where to start with things like : environments, digital, female anatomy, hands (still!) drawing decent figures, let alone how to apply any of this into my own creative work.

This is today and some of yesterdays work. I'm kinda scared to touch the flowerpot again, I don't want to ruin it. The rest is proportions mainly, which I failed on most of.

-Sam

[Man Made God]

Gesture is just the underlying action or pose of a drawing. It's an incredibly important concept for figure drawing, but its relatively easy to practice. Even a 30 second sketch can express gesture, thats why I recommended posemaniacs to you. Its covered in a lot of books, Vilppu drawing manual was the best I've read so far for explaining it, but the book is fairly rare. Check out this tutorial, specifically the sections on line art and perspective: http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=37474

You say that you have problems drawing people in perspective, but people are always drawn in perspective, even in profile. It sounds more like you have problems handling perspective in a freehand kind of way, it helps to imagine simplified 3d forms when building the figure, like in the Hogarth and Loomis books.

[SamC]

Man Made God: Did 3 posemaniac sketches today, Gotta say, the legs all seem too short, I spent about 20 minutes on them each (is that too long?) Reading through that tutorial has really given me a lot to think about and apply to my work. I will search around for this Vilppu book, but I think it's just gonna take practice. Thanks, you're giving good critique :D

Finally have some good digitals going down :) I only really understood Hue, Saturation and Value once I had the bars in front of me and played about with how a texture looks. Feedback please!

-Sam P.S I've filled my study folder with 40 drawings in about 5 days :O

[Man Made God]

You can take as long as want, don't worry about that. You should do quicker sketches too though, with an emphasis on quick construction. They don't need to be anything more than a few lines. Look at other peoples' quick figure drawings to see how they handle the gesture phase. There are a lot of different styles, its a pretty abstract part of the drawing, but its essential for conveying force.

Your digital paintings are looking good, the blending(edges) seems like the weak point, but the colours look right. Did you use the eyedropper or did you work them out manually? Either way, they look good. In July I couldn't get those kind of results even with whoring the eyedropper.

[SamC]

Man Made God: I notice in a lot of Bridgeman's work that he uses a lot less lines, but they show so much more. I'm gonna look more into gesture, it's a bit of a black hole for me, it comes in so many forms that I'm still not certain how to express it. As for the coloring, would I solve the blending issue by occasionally using a softer brush, or using more values to achieve a softer look? I only used the eyedropper once to lay down a base color, and the rest was just guesswork. And thanks, that means a lot coming from you :teeth:

Most detailed self-portrait so far I think, thanks to using more contrast. I've sorted the issue of the eyes being huge, but now the face is too long D: I'll get there soon ;)

[Man Made God]

Like I said, gesture is the most basic form of the drawing. Quick sketches are great for getting a feel for it.

Softer brushes tend to make a lot of blur, they can be useful but I think they're better for atmospheric effects than rendering solid objects. Stick to hard brushes with variable opacity and/or flow, at least for now. When blending, continually overlap the two colours and use the eyedropper to choose the in between colour, like mixing paint.

For choosing initial/base colours, its okay to use the eyedropper initially, but it is a crutch so make sure you learn to do it manually. Remember that you can paint on your reference image if you open it in photoshop, that way you can find a colour through trial and error.

Your values are better, but be patient with your shading. You don't need photorealistic rendering, but avoid scribbling at all costs and do your best to "follow" the forms.

[SamC]

Man Made God:It may be the most basic form of drawing, but it's literally destroyed me :| Whenever I try and draw anything it just comes out completely distorted and, well, shit, as you can see from todays work. Thanks for the tips on digital, sound really helpful.

Whenever I draw something good, it feels great, but when I'm not I feel crap. I don't really want to stop because I want to get good so badly, but I'm not really having fun anymore.. Today's work got me down because everything I drew was rubbish, it was as if everything I'd learnt counted for nothing. I'll stick with it, but it's not good :(

EDIT: MAN UP

-Sam

[kikindaface]

Hey man, I see that you're working hard, and it's a really good thing ! Try to draw more from life, it's the best way to improve your drawing skills ( values, proportions, forms ) and keep studying color, Your strawbery and apple's paintings are really good. Maybe you can take more time on those, to have a more finished painting. Keep it up man, and have fun !!

[SamC]

Walid D: Do you mean draw people from life? Thanks for the encouragement.

Environment I made last night, is fairly poop but I'd never tried before and didn't really know how to.

-Sam

[Man Made God]

Well, you can't expect great results on your first try. Do some environments from reference or books. And don't worry so much, you're 14 and you already use CA. I started drawing seriously when I was 15 and it took me a year to find some good books, you already have inspiration, feedback and access to good learning materials. Have fun. Practice and absorb information. Feed your imagination and have fun with it. By the time you hit 10 pages you'll be completely different. Which won't be long at this rate.

I see that you're already using Bridgman, but make sure you have all of Loomis' books, you can download them for free.

And I found a thread on Vilppu, so check him out (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=49811&highlight=vilppu).

[SamC]

Man Made God: Thanks, I realized how rubbish my attitude was and got on with it. Thanks for the Vilppu material, I feel it gave me quite a boost on gesture. The pose maniac blobs are starting to take form :D

Today and some of yesterdays stuff, sorry to keep overlapping days but I work way into the night. Just about to get started on my next digital environment :)

[Miles_]

Nice, you may not see it but you are improving fast. Try to keep it fun, drawing can be extremely frustrating at time, trust me I know, you just gotta preceveire. Keep it up friend.

[Porg]

I think you improved a lot when you went from your scratchy lines to the nice, smooth ones you're creating now. I wish I'd had the internet at your age, it would've helped immensly.

Your confidence will grow the more you draw as you'll understand what good and what's bad. I'm sure even professionals draw a lot of what they consider crap images. The only way you'll improve is by making mistakes.

You're anatomy and general human form is really coming on well though.
I would also heavily agree on the advice of drawing from life. Just draw people, wether they're stickmen or whatever, it'll all help you understand.

[SamC]

Miles: Thanks man, I realized you just have to stop whining and work :D

Porg: Yeah, I think it'll take a few pages before I notice an improvement, but I do sit back sometimes after finishing something and think "I couldn't do that a week ago :O." I keep pestering my family to let me draw them whilst they do whatever they do around the house but they seem a bit intimidated. I'll just draw them regardless :P Thanks for the encouragement.

Environment from reference, I am proud of this because I didn't use the eyedropper once. That's all for tonight.

-Sam

[SamC]

More posemaniacs and some poses from Pulp Fiction.

-Sam

[Φ]

Hey man! It´s good that you´re doing poses!! keep those coming! you´re also not afraid of divin in new stuff! like the enviro or digital stuff in general!
and already improvement in those poses! damn, did more than I ever did so far…gotta do some soon!you´re well on your way and you´re 14…%) I thought I was a young member=) keep it coming
cheers

[SamC]

BigfooTrooper: Haha I'm actually terrified of diving into new stuff, but I'm going to have to some time, right? Thanks dude, I'll keep checking up on your SB ;)

Yey second page!! Ergh WIP environment. Pretty washed out and didn't capture the rocks well, you can tell which bits aren't done. Need to develop a cleaner style, but I don't have the patience for detail just yet.

-Sam

[Φ]

hey again!
about the enviro!: I think you go too soon into detail…try to simply block in colors with big brush before using such small brushes! draw from ref!
look into some tutorials and don´t worry about detail…enviros can llok great with a rather low amount of detail:P !
keep going
cheers

[SamC]

BigfooTrooper: Yeah I do block out colours with a large brush first, but like you said I dive into tiny brushes too early. I need to try slowly downgrading the size of the brush. I am working from ref at the moment, been digging around but can't find many tutorials :( you know any?

-Sam

[Φ]

well, take a look at these:
http://www.itchstudios.com/psg/tuts/process.jpg
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=107217&highlight=bumskee
Digital painting in general; should help you!! there are thousands! of others! and I´m sure there are no tuts specific for enviros! if you know one, tell me ;-)
cheers

[SamC]

bigfooTrooper: Thanks those links are helpful! Made a pretty crummy onion digital but it was too rubbish for me to even bother saving :O

Back to school so less posts maybe now. Feel the gesture is slowly coming..and my women are starting to not look like men :D

-Sam

[My57]

hey! nice to see your dropped by mine. I would recommend looking at "Drawing The Head & Figure" By Jack Hamm

www.scribd.com

that site may have a PDF of it.

and i would recommend as well:

"Dynamic Figure Drawing" By Burne Hogarth

-----

these are good books for drawing. i would recommend reading the first book that i said above. its good for beginners and then read the second book by Hogarth, as it has more detail on the body.

[SamC]

My57: I already have the Hogarth book. I got Drawing the Head and Figure, it's fairly standard, all I really learnt was for women to use two triangles instead of an 8. Not sure I'm ready to move on to Hogarth yet, his books are more about developing style on a foundation, I think I need to work on the basics a bit more. Thanks for the recommendations. :P

Gesture is coming along I think. Tell me what you think. And by the way, the sloppy ones are done in 30 seconds, I'm not usually that bad :P

-Sam

[JailHouseRock]

Hi Sam, I can already see some big porgress here!

Good pose work and good to see the face studies, keep those up and try to draw from life too.
As for the digital's try to keep on trucking, but I;d say you should focus on the sketches and pencil work for now,

Great strat mate, keep it up!


matt,

[doncam]

you have lots of talent Sam, and you're going great. Getting some good crits. I think you're trying to cover too much ground right now. I'd concentrate on say, getting your body proportions spot on, hands and feet. I draw them over and over and over. Watch your lines, make them neater less sketchy. You're doing good for your age, keep practising, good work.

[My57]

Jack Hamm is a book for beginners man, thats why i recommended it for ya ^_^

[SamC]

JailHouseRock: Thanks man! I think I'm definitely going to get good at everything else before trying digital seriously.

doncam: Cheers, it means a lot. I definitely feel quite stretched in terms of the variety that I'm learning, but I'm worried about not building a solid foundation on something now and have to go back to do it later. My lines are getting quite sloppy recently, I need to concentrate on those more. Thanks for the great crit!

My57: Ok :)

Today and yesterday's stuff so far. Will post some 30 second posemaniacs later. First is for a DSG and the other is just some practise at anatomy, gesture, proportion and costume.

[SamC]

The posemaniacs as promised, each done in 30 seconds :P

[My57]

dude. I seriously want you to look at that Jack Hamm Book. The best book for the female body. or at least a good one.

[SamC]

My57: Firstly, I think you need to make your comments a tad more subtle, your last was verging on being plain rude. Secondly, I've flicked through the section on drawing the female body and it's basically regurgitations of more important books that I'm reading like Loomis and Bridgeman. At the weekend, I'll do like 5 pages of female anatomy to try and get over the problem, if this satisfies your 'urges.' Still thanks for raising the issue.

Drew more from life :P got some ideas down ;) and did more posemaniacs :D

-Sam

[My57]

well your other comment kinda ignored the other book. I mean you just commented on the Hogarth book and said nothing on the other. Sorry but i thought you didn't bother with the other book, and when i said "seriously want you to look at that Jack Hamm Book." i was just trying to push you to look at it xD sorry about that.

I should have said: Did you look at Jack Hamms book? i would recommend it if you didn't, sorry to bring this up again. but you didn't say anything in the last comment about it.


Sorry for the rudeness.

[SamC]

My57: No harm done :)

Really feel my gesture is coming together :D First guy's lower torso is waay too long.

-Sam

[Man Made God]

When you're laying down the gesture, you can indicate the orientation of the hips and upper torso/shoulders by drawing simple straight lines. It's pretty useful to observe when they are in opposition, a small tilt in the vertical position of the hips can tell a lot about the weight distribution on each leg. And when the upper and lower torso are in strong opposition, one side of the torso stretches and the other compresses. It sounds basic, but just some stuff to look out for.

You're doing great, the posemaniacs quick studies are great for getting a feel for gesture. Once you get a little more confident, you can try drawing people around you very quickly in a gesture kinda way. Something I need to start doing more...

EDIT: One more thing. I noticed you're getting used to using longer sweeping lines for the full body. This is great, but make sure you rework it on your second pass, because the legs in some of those drawings are following the curve a little too closely. For the most part it's looking good. Keep it up!

[kikindaface]

Man, you are improving really fast. Everything looks better ! Try to make some blind contours ( drawing without seeing what you draw, and without lifting the pencil ! ) Everyday !! Of course, it will suck, but you wil be more confident with your line ! I always draw my hand When I make blind contours :). Try to also draw some straight lines, circles, ellipses,Will improve your line quality. Be careful with proportions ! Always be sure that proportions are right before puting values. Really wanna see a bit more studies !! Draw what you see, paint what you see, people, enviros, you desk, your hand, everything, everywhere, until you will be a killer ! Study perspective, composition, color theory, design, .... You've started studying anatomy and it's great !! So keep it up and have fun !!

[SamC]

Man Made God: Thanks for the great crit, all taken on board and (hopefully) applied.

Walid D: Inspiritational speach man haha. Blind contours are strange but overall very interesting. Will follow your demands to the letter :yayca:

Today's stuff. Fucked up hands are blind contours (read Walid D's comment) the rest is fairly self-explanatory.

-Sam

[SamC]

Another rubbishy environment. I think I'll go back to painting fruit and vegetable..

~Sam

[SamC]

Self-Portrait. This thread is getting lonely... Anyone know how to add text below my attatchment?

-Sam

[Foolsauce]

Hey. I see nice bit of improvement throughout this thread already!

One thing I notice with your gestures is you seem to be focusing very much on the "outline" of the body, which can get them kinda' out of proportion and make the lines messier. Focusing on the feeling and movement of the body should create a more flowing figure.

Now, I'm not very good yet, but I find vilppu to have an excellent guide on gesture drawing. Here's a link: http://www.awn.com/mag/issue3.3/3.3pages/3.3vilppudrawing.html

Oh, and about your picture attachments and getting them directly in your posts: you attach them with the attachment manager but then you go back up to your message and click the 'Attachments' paperclip icon and click attach all (I think that's what it's called. . .). Then you can write around your attachments.

Hope this helps!

[Miles_]

Not bad my friend, when you render something, try making all the lines follow the form of the surface you are rendering. Don't just do the strokes in any direction, have them describe the form, I hope I'm making sense as it is quite hard to explain. Just PM me if you want a fuller explanation.

Also in PS trying messing around with the brush settings to get a more varied result and some more interesting textures. Keep experimenting and draw every day. That is the most vital bit, if you are drawing every day and studying also, you will improve. Its all a matter of time:D cya around dude, if I get some money together I'll tag along with you and John this Friday. Oh and you should come over with a sketchbook sometime, do some life drawing,

take care,

[Fshoo]

I like. The Bridgman studies are paying off, you can see the difference in the way you draw hands already. Going in the right direction, keep it up!

[SamC]

I'm really sorry for not updating today. I got home from a really bad day of school and felt so so sick, I'll post my drawings from yesterday and reply properly to posts tommorow. Gonna get some sleep now -.-

-Sam

[Grizzliman]

Nice studies man keep those up!
And as you told yourself a while ago try some dynamic pose

Cheers

[SamC]

Foolsauce: Thanks for the crit. I've been linked to Vilppu before, it's helpful. It's so hard to capture movement and feeling from a still photo. I need to work from life more.

Miles: Now that you say that I notice on the portrait in this latest stuff seems slanted because all the lines go in the same way, I will be sure to change that. I'm currently using Opencanvas because the colour selector has Hue Saturation and Value bars, which is the great, but it lacks the great features PS has. PS uses R G B colour selector, which is really annoying to use. Do you know anyway to change it to a HSV selector? And yeah, if you tell me when your free I'll come round with a sketchbook some time :D Hopefully see you Friday.

Fshoo: Thanks man!

Grizzliman: Will do, thanks!

None of the crit has been applied yet because this stuff was made on Saturday. The fucked up hands are, again, blind contours, when you don't look at the paper, only the subject.

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Back on Bridgeman.
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I think this is my best piece so far :D
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[Vehkt]

You're really working hard with those studies :) And as others have said you can indeed see the improvement they bring to your drawings.

Age wise you've got a nice head start on loads of us, keep it up! :D

[Miles_]

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=515941&d=1226411567 This to me shows the most improvement so far. Remeber that when you are doing thos posemaniacs, don't focus so much on thr outline of the figure, but more the individual shapes of different muscles groups and limbs, really try to think about volume.

Well, if we go see max payne on friday, we'll arrange to meet on sunday or something, I'm out at a friends party saturday. Cya then, oh and friday all relies on me getting some money together :{

[SamC]

Vekht: Thanks so much dude!

Miles_: Hmm I don't really think that picture came out so well, but if you say so :P you're advice was really helpful, definitely changed my posemaniacs a lot. You'd better get enough money :P PM me tomorrow to let me know if you can go right?

Upping my game, I realised I needed to produce more work. I'm now using 60 second posemaniacs, and only as warm ups, do about 30 a day. 2 pages of study and I'll post a life portrait later. Something clicked today, just feel all these drawings show improvement. Have to be the best :D

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This last one was done from posemaniacs but I'm not sure how much time i spent on each, maybe 10-15 minutes? May post a portrait later.

-Sam

[Φ]

WTF!! did I miss something!!! MAN!! hand studies looking good! posemaniacs have evolved already and man…last two are good pieces of work! well done!! give us more
cheers!!

[kikindaface]

I also think that I missed something :) Level up man !! Cheers

[Man Made God]

That's some noticeable improvement, well done mate. Keep it varied and keep up the hard work :)

[My57]

i see some improvement. oh i would recommend hogarths Dynamic Figure drawing if you like his head and body one. (i dont have that one) The book should be listed on that www.scribd.com site.

It will help you with more dynamic figures (as the title implies)


anyways keep up the good work ^_^

[SamC]

Ah as flattered as I was by all the comments on my improvement, it kinda shifted my focus too much onto getting a good drawing then learning, thus making me fail epically today, I worried too much about getting it right. Must...Get...Stable...Mind frame!!! :zzz:

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Last two are pictures referenced from Parkour. These were really fun to draw and I reckon gave a lot of help with gesture.
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There was another 60 second posemaniacs but it wouldn't upload. I think I will do two more posemaniacs later on 10-15 mintues each, we'll see. Over and out.

-Sam

[Miles_]

Yes, thats it dude, with the 30 seconds, try to just go for it with confidence, none of the slightly petted lines, just smooth flowing. You'll be amazed at the results.

I read a great post today that I'll link you to, and I highly reccommend you read

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=115055&page=26

further down the page, the post by Kvick. You might wanna think about some of the things he said, before getting into the habit of constantly being unhappu with where you are right now.

As for tomorrow, I don't think I can make it, My grandparents are coming down for the weekend:p, maybe, we'll see.

[SamC]

Miles_: Yeah I noticed I was mothering those lines a tad too much, thanks for bringing it up. I gotta say that post does help a lot. I have a much broader view of things that I may as well get off my chest whilst I'm here. I'm trying to act as 3rd person from my drawings as I can and most of all have a balanced view of all my work. I imagine it as a see-saw, if I'm happy about a drawing, then the flipside is that I could also get very unhappy about a drawing. It works both ways. So instead of wanting, as Kvick said, to be happy, I more want to be neutral, because you can't have the highs without the lows...in my opinion anyway. On the last post I got too much encouragement which made me too proud, thus making all other work seem inadequate and getting me annoyed. Anyway thanks mate :D

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I find doing these sports studies really fun, and really really helpful :)
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[My57]

in the last one with the guy upside down, his hands dont seem to be flat against the ground. or at least at the angle they should be at.

[SamC]

My57: I drew it straight from reference, but I think he must have been adjusting his weight or something. Cheers.

Todays lot so far. I found I was pushing the pencil down pretty hard, I guess relying on force for confidence in lines, so i made it very light on the figures and got more flowing results :D
60 second posemaniacs
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Starting to try and use my studies in more final pieces.
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[Φ]

somebody stop him!!=)
rock on!

[SamC]

DSG picture, was meant to be a Hot-Rodified Demon. Need to work a lot more on difference shading on materials in digital. Also, never draw a car without perspective D:

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[SamC]

More stuff. This SB has become a lonely place haha. I feel my anatomy is coming along quite well, I might ease that off slightly and move into face studies. I'm not sure, some people do one thing for a week, and some keep it all varied all the time. My only worry with doing one thing for ages, is that I might end up sucking at everything else. Help me out :/

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[Miles_]

Looking good man, you are improving phenominally fast! Don't worry about the whole just studying anatomy thing, its definately paying off so don't worry. You have so much time to improve, remember most of the pro's you see on this site are at least mid twenties minimum. Your work is already looking so much better, just keep it up!

[My57]

lol you copied my pointing guy xD

jks, i know you got it from that book. Anyways, i see you've been practising hard. keep it up and you'll get better.

[SamC]

Miles_: Will do ;)

My57: Yeah you're version of it looked pretty hot so I figured I'd use that. Didn't quite get the curvy hips though. Thanks :)

My scanner is being funny, so if the values doesn't look right, it is just the scanner. Stuff from yesterday:
Just study and stuff.
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These two aren't reffed, completely from my mind. Probably a bad idea, but the references can be quite restricting in terms of being able to find the right one.
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I'll upload some drawings from today later. Need to go draw them now :D

[SamC]

Yesterday's stuff, need to start posting on a night, this is getting annoying. Proportions sucked yesterday. Gonna go start drawing for tonight now.

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[Jeff Bartzis]

Hey man, thanks for stopping by my SB.
I looked through yours, and I can see improvement already.
just keep it up and there's no limit to how good you'll be.

If I can offer a crit:
When doing the pose drawing I would recommend drawing through the form. Like if a leg is crossing over another leg, dont just draw the leg(in the back) up to where you dont see it anymore and then continue to draw it from the other side.. like attaching it on or something... Draw right through the leg in front.. not noticeably tho.. just lightly, so you get a better grasp for where things go, then go back and do the darker lines. This will keep things a bit more proportionate.
I'm not sure if that really made any sense at all... I have a hard time getting what I want to say into words.. lol, if you dont get it. just fire me a PM or something I would be glad to help out some more.

Cheers buddy!

[SamC]

Sorry no time for reply or anything yet. Have to go to school :( Will edit this post later.

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[Grizzliman]

nice man, didn't know you could draw like that!
I shall post in an minute at my thread to, but anyway great studies and so much!!

Awesome dude

[SamC]

Jeff Bartzis: Thanks, means a lot. I do love getting crits I'd never thought of :D Will definitely try that next time.

Grizzliman: Thanks dude, means more than you know ;) And I will be checking up on your SB so get updating.

Todays stuff. Need to press down on some posemaniacs, I'm being too lazy lately. Everyone's telling me I'm getting really good, but personally I think I'm only like 1% of the artist I could be at the moment. Any crits on the pilot piece would be nice, I'm thinking of drawing more and making it a full piece maybe? Oh yeah, that legless hobo thing I guess counts towards my challenge ;)

[My57]

wow tons of studies here. Keep it up and you'll get anatomy down pretty fast.

[JailHouseRock]

Hay Sam, good porgress here,

The studies are going really good like My57 said keep them up and you'll get where you want to be quicker,

Oh and as a side note, when your doing the anatomy studies try to do lots of really quick ones just trying to get the right shape and proportions rather than going stright to the detail.

keep at it dude,

matt,

[SamC]

My57: Hmm was that sarcasm? I don't do nearly enough studies :P

JailHouseRock: Thanks, I will try harder :)

Yesterdays stuff.
Loomis. Had some colouring pencils and wanted to try a new media.
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Clothing studies
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These are 30 second PM (the others were 60. I found it hard to following the crit because 30s are so damn quick.
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2nd entry to the challenge. 3 more rendered pieces to go.
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[Miles_]

Its shocking how fast you are improving:0

[_Forrest]

lol, Miles it was amazing how fast u were improving, but he has a point dude, yur lookin really good. Us 14 year olds are gonna rule the art world someday :}

[jackpot_anjr90]

Thanks for stopping by my sketchbook! I looked through yours and the improvement obviously there. One suggestion from me though is that you work more on proportions. Some heads look a bit small and some poses look slightly awkward... but some fine tuning will make your work much better. Your shading is nice as well!

[SamC]

Miles_: That's huge coming from you :O

Magezhilo: Yeah, give it a year and us lot will be the pros of this place :D

jackpot_anjr90: I know :( my current weakness is the head being too small and occasionally the legs look tiny. Thanks for crit :)

Seriously guys, I can explain D: I had a big maths test and then my science ISA for GCSEs and when I got home I went out to a party. I didn't have a lot of time to draw but I managed to fit in a half-arsed SP.

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[Man Made God]

Don't worry. If you're not enjoying life, you can't enjoy art. Make sure that all your school work and social needs are dealt with. Even on the worst days you can get a little art done, as long as you are in a routine you'll be fine.

I think you should do some value studies on simple objects, work on your lighting and blending. Your sense of proportion and space has improved a lot, and values seem to be one of your weak points. Keep it up!

[Miles_]

Looking better, starting to get a better resemblance, one thing you are doing a lot in your self portraits is making the eyes a bit too big. Also in terms of values, think of it like this. You have your areas in light, and your areas in shadow. Out of a value range of say, 10 values, you should have everything from white (1) down to about 0.4 as values for light, and the remaining four as values for shadow. Only leave the white of the paper in areas that are the absoulute brightest highlights, and describe your form using subtle shifts in value. Then the most drastic change should be to areas of shadow. You get hard edged shadows from cast shadows, which is light being blocked by an object casting a shadow. Form shadows are the softer edged shadows caused my a surface turning away from a lightsource.

here is a small thing i knocked up on what I mean

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and because you're super special here is a quick thing on value and light, not the best thing ever, I can't remember your face off the top of my head and im not certain of the lighting so there isnt much resemblance, but as I said its more about value.

Yours has a much better resemblance :P

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[algenpfleger]

Damn kids! :D

Hey you practice a lot. That's awesome. And I see you also do stuff from life, references and imagination. That's awesome too :D Do some more colored stuff though! It's a good way to learn about values and edges, much better than greyscale studies, and that knowledge will also help you with your penciling, and what you learn there will in turn make your painting better D: Lots of stuff to learn! Keep going!

[SamC]

ManMadeGod: Thanks.

Miles_: :O Thanks for taking the time, best crit ever. A lot to learn from the paint-over. I always worry about not leaving white in case it looks like the skin is darker. There will be so much to think about when it comes to rendering now, I'm just a little scared about applying it. Thanks :D

Algenpfleger: Will give it a try man :D Thanks for taking a look!

Hogarth, Posemaniacs, and practicing face proportions.

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[Φ]

hey sam! thanks for checking my SB!
I like how much you produce per day!! Rock on!
about the pencil renderings, I´d recommend you taking a quantum more time=)

and diamond advice there from Miles! useful to all of us!!
cheers

[SamC]

Firstly, attachment manager. What the fuck's happened? I had to fill out copyright details for every single image to upload them, and the amount of times it just closed itself down and stuff. Secondly, these images look like I whored the whites, it's just the gaps I leave between lines over-exposed from the scanner!!!. Lesson learnt, I will tighten the lines together next time.

bigfooTrooper: Agreed, way to sketchy at the moment. And yes, Miles has blessed us all with his presence on my SB :asskisser:

From yesterday, attempted to pin down what Miles was saying. Not sure if I did.
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Today's stuff:
A composition I had to do for art in the style of Luis Melendez.
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Fencing Study...sorta lol
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Couldn't be bother to finish this, and the face is off in many places anyway.
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No doubt that I need to move to digital, this is another apple study, really didn't have time to finish it, I'll spend more time on it later though.
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[SamC]

Finished :) Crit would be nice. This thread has become a lonesome place :(

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[Φ]

hhmm… I liked it better before that yellow dots…the colors are actually very good! get yourself some other fruits ( for the sake of change) and redo that exercise! fruits are good things to practice…

next step would be going into detail…and maybe adding a clear flowing shape…

in the end it all comes to practice practice practice!
keep it coming

[SamC]

bigfooTrooper: cheers

Yesterdays stuff. I've hit a wall. A REALLY big wall :|

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And I can't win with rendering at the moment. In real life it looks too dark, and on the scanner there's loads of white that isn't actually there.
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[Nibras]

Hmmm.....
Looking good here sam :)
Your improving alot
Keep this up man but i really would advice drawing alot from imagination helps tons. Just really take your time on the studies no point in rushing them.
For example, those bridgemans i doubt you learned much from them. Close your eyes and see if you can remember anything from them.... nothing to be able to apply to your art.
Thing is there no point in wasting time doing a study that has no use when you do a study make the most of it and then apply it to your own stuff. Isn't that the whole point of studies?
Just slow down
Sorry if it was harsh just don't want you messing up like I did and hating art.
Keep it up

[My57]

your apple looks like it has sprinkles on it.

Id advice you to really look at the colour more when painting, as it may look like its a solid colour at first but it may have a slight shade of something else in it. or you use to strong of a colour which makes the whole thing look unnatural. anyways i can see you getting better so keep it up ^_^

i would also advise watching your arms when you draw, sometimes their to long.

[SamC]

When I said I'd hit a wall, I meant that I'd found myself suddenly very uninspired and very lazy :O It's coming back, I'm gonna go watch The Matrix to get some inspiration and then really hit the SB. It's been a month since I've started the SB :D Month 1 was about finding my feet, developing the basics of pencil rendering, anatomy and gesture. Month 2, I hope will be about developing some sort of basic understanding of PS painting, practice more faces, and to further push all of the things I'd learnt in month 1.

lilnebo: Hmm sorry to deny crit but I really disagree with what you've said. For instance, I know from the top of my head that the last Bridgeman study was about reinforcing my knowledge of the structure of the forearm, a weak point for me. I just don't see how what you said really applies to me at all..

My57: Haha thanks for the vote of confidence :dead: I tried to follow your advice but ended up with a very multi-coloured apple :( I do practice PS a lot but the results are usually far too embarrassing for me to even save.

And without further ado, here's my drawings from the last 2 days ;)

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[walnut]

Well, your dedication is definitely paying off. Personally, in drawing figures i find that it helps to have a good understanding of the underlying skeleton. Maybe it could be a good idea to focus on learning that? And if you worry about your proportions, you have to realize that it takes mots of time to get the hang of that. You'll get there one day, believe me.

[Φ]

hey sam! I think your pencil rendering is improving already! go on like that!
try and experiment with some diff. techniques (I gonna do that soon)
like cross hatching, dunno if you do that already, looks like your using linear strokes so far... but as I said, It^s getting better!

and listen to walnut, he^s a genius of a sort concerning figure drawing

cheers buddy

[SamC]

Walnut: Bah thanks so much :D Yeah I've really been slowing down too much on my figures lately because I don't really know how to make them better (not in an arrogant way, just not understanding how to improve,) so I think skeletal structure will help loads.

bigfooTrooper: Thanks man ;) I'll try and experiment with some different techniques sometime, it's just figuring out how they work really :P I'll pop round your SB, haven't been in ages.

Well I'm ill again, just as I got out of my block yesterday, I wake up today feeling very very tired and very cold. I'm so frustrated with myself recently, I've lost all momentum. The moment I shift this bug I will be back on top form ;)

Yesterday I decided I sucked at faces so I did some study on hot supermodel's faces, it's a tough job but someone has to do it ha.
This was my first page, it basically goes from left to right improvement wise.
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Again, no real resemblance, but learnt a lot.
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These are from imagination, apply the study :D
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[My57]

your apple became multicolour? well just keep practising and looking at colours and you'll get it. My apple to me a bit to get right until my cat attacked and i couldn't finish it. *sad face*

[SamC]

My57: Will do :D

This isn't really an update, I just feel ashamed for not updating. My cold has gotten a lot worse, but I have drawings from yesterday to upload later on if I have the energy.

Apple from mind. No idea why I tried this with no reference D:

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.stupid thing to post

[Nibras]

You got the pressure sense to work?
Looking good i would just be laying down more *block* colours and then blending so that you get a feel for form, light and shadow from the beggining
Ocing was fun :P we'll do it again
Keep it up

[Miles_]

Keep it up bud, try not too think about things like artistic blocks ect. They are a seld furfilling prophesy. If you are worried you will get one, you will put too much pressure on yourself, then be dissatisfied and start thinking you are in an artistic block ect. Just keep doing whatcha doin its really working:D

[SamC]

Lilnebo: No, I swear it doesn't have it :( I read the package and it never said anything about pressure sensitive levels at all. I just got a load of money from selling old stuff, so I may as well just buy a new one :D

Miles_: Thanks man :asslick: Had never really thought of it like that.

Not being negative, I just never get round to improving stuff if I don't point it out. I want to work more in PS, leg length needs to be sorted (will memorise loomis head proportion system), Small heads (same solution), all my renders are really grey now, no contrast (make shadows darker) annnd SOMEONE TELL ME WHY MY RENDERS ALWAYS MAKE THE SKIN LOOK DARK :davi:

I never do creatures :( Literally the first animal (sortof) I've ever drawn..
Part of our challenge. I coloured it in colour pencils because PS scares me lol
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No ref for this one. Legs need to be longer or tummy smaller?
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Doodles :)
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Legs are too short on the skeleton study :( Pic on the right is totally reffed up
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Some weirdy bloke from no ref, wasn't meant to look asian, but that's what happened :S SP on the right, no resemblance really, but I like the closeness of the lines.
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More updates to come soon, I've almost shifted this bitchy cold :D

[SamC]

Yesterday's stuff and some of today's. I feel a digital fruit coming along :(

For a Batman and his Batmobile dynamic energy challenge. Just sketching really, foreshortening is a bit bad.
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Tried drawing a fat guy but wasn't really sure how.
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Face studies from reference, the unrendered one's smile chills me
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Learnt how to draw fat people :D ref is fattest man in the world.
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This was meant to be an astronaut's helmet, but the reflection went wrong. It was supposed to show some guy's desk, but ended up being a nuclear explosion in a city, and some weird W shaped face guard.
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[kikindaface]

It's really good kid ! Your rendering skill have improved !! Keep it up :)

[SamC]

Walid D: Thanks...but don't call me kid lol

Well I never used to know tablets were even pressure sensitive until a few days ago. Tweaked mine a bit and got the pressure level working, and boy is painting a lot easier now. I'm no longer scared of my tablet.

Stupid update again, no ref

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[My57]

that is much better then your last apple. It looks a little pale though. Maybe more red in it? and the twig on it looks a little to thick.

Please look at anatomy books more, your rib cages are way off in some picks. try to imprint the shape of every part of the human body into your head and it'll help you.

[SamC]

My57: Thanks. Will look into some rib cage study.

Apple from life.

[sjmarshy]

looking good, there is definite improvement page for page. I need to do anatomy studies too, must be a Sam thing (my name is Sam also.)

I found that as soon as I got used to a tablet, it became insanely fun to use. Still not put up a lot of stuff I do in photoshop but I think working on random little projects helps.
keep it up.

[SamC]

SJMarshy: I'm glad to see the Sam community is growing :D Yeah the moment I got my tablet so that the opacity changed on pressure it just became really fun :) Will check your SB.
Rib Studies from Bridgeman
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Applying study from imagination
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Posemaniacs: why i need to do more D:
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Update on my challenge picture. Will use the angle on the right.
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[Sebastian Gromann]

wow ya practising is paining off quiet fast ! a little coin of advice is maybe that u might start to think about propertionen a bit more, try to think about the relation and size of parts from the body to a other part of the body, that will help i guess ;) dont stop mate ! draw !

[SamC]

SnobbyOo: Thanks. My proportions are pretty weak I admit, I'll get to work on that.

Just doodlin today, experimenting with colour. Not really sure where to go now. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Started a painting. Trying to understand skin colour, but I really should have done a study on it D: I doubt I'll continue with this.

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[Φ]

it´s amazing how you manage to hold that amount of work per day!
your doing fine! your anatomy studies are good! you´re getting there!
about time to really dive into color! I think you like´ll a lot=)

keep rollin´man!! cheers

[SkyTheArtist]

Hey wow! You're doing very well! Especially since I notice improvement on one single page. :D I love how many sketches and drawings your doing. It both inspires me and makes me guilty that I haven't done as much. :^^;:

Keep it up, keep it up! You're goin' somewhere with all this, definitely. ;)

[Man Made God]

Yeah, when you're working on a weak point, simplify the subject. Don't try and render a human from a weird angle and imagination if you can't paint a simple pose from reference, start basic and work your way up lol. Plenty of progress though, those apples are good considering you only just got a fully functional tablet :) Keep putting the hours in!

[My57]

that last apple is looking better. It looks pale though (still) but its much better then your last attempts. you study is coming along nicely, please continue with these before trying to draw from your head (i know its tempting) this just makes it faster for you to learn. Which means the faster you can start drawing w/e you want.

[SamC]

bigfooTrooper: Cheers man. No idea where to start with creatures though :P Will get down to your SB, it's been a while.

SkytheArtist: Thanks, to be honest I don't know what else I'd do with my time :D

Man Made God: That's a good point lol I think I'll do some studies first :) Thanks

My57: I couldn't disagree more, if you can't immediately apply study from your head then what did you learn? I enjoy drawing from mind too much not to. Which area of the body should I work on now, I feel fairly sound with the rib cage, but it could be better I'm guessing? Legs are such a weak point, So is female anatomy...I pretty much just answered my own question >.<

Yesterday's stuff. This is the traditional work I did, could have done some study I know :( My leg lengths are very weak, I need to improve that but I'm not sure how.
Pose came out wrong, so I edited it a bit :P LEGS!
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LEGS!
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FUN :D
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Doodles
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[Mischeviouslittleelf]

Hey mate, just dropped in here, seeing as I say you were one of the young'ns. I gotta tell you, a lot of people give you praise, and that is deserved, you are 14, which is a young age to start doing this at, but that is a good thing. I like your enthusiasm for art, and your guts to stick with this, but there are a couple of things that you need to look into.

First of your lines, they are very dull, so try and get some life into that, try and mix it up a little. I would like to see some more coloured stuff, so do studies, sort of like the the ones Algenpflegler did in his early pages. You should also try and get into more design elements, seeing as that would help with you understanding of forms in spaces and what not.

Second, you need to stay the hell away from white. Seeing pure white being put into a painting, or people using it for an element to blend through, it kinda makes me sad, because that means they have no studied their Itten and the other colour theories.

Thirdly, and this is the important one, don't rush to much, be calm, and work on your weak areas. Bring a small SB with you everywhere you go and just draw like crazy, be a kid, like most of the rest of us;) and just keep doing this stuff, and befor you know it, you will see improvement!

Cheers

-E

[My57]

*sigh*

yes i know drawing from your head allows you to apply what you have learned, but i can assure you the more you study anatomy and copy it the more your head learns it and it sticks with it. Meaning the more studies done means more your brain learns how everything works meaning that the drawings from your head will become better.

Trust me on this. i used to be waaaaay worse then i am now before the summer (2008, for future reference) then i used my 2 months on the human body study. And bam i got to this to this level (well a little worse since ive gotten better since September)

so bla bla bla, thats all their is to anatomy. Study. Boring crap i know, but that also doesn't mean you can't draw from your head once in awhile.

[Nettle_Mountain]

doing good, just try to make some anatomy studies then and then, will look forward what you cook for sunday

[SamC]

Mischeviouslittleelf: Thanks, great crit. I PMed you about some stuff I wasn't sure about.

My57: Ok, sorry man. Will do some studies.

Nettle_Mountain: Will do :) Sunday..that's tommorow D: I can't draw creatures for shit :O

Morning painting :) I feel quite good about this piece, which probably means it's rubbish lol I can never get the glaze from my pc screen right :(

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[SamC]

I went out for a bit today and did some shitty speed-drawings. The reasons these are so rough is because they were moving, and my pencil was reaallyy blunt. Other drawings are just meh. I tried painting a roast chicken, but it didn't turn out too well D: I went into detail too early.

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I AM AWARE THE LAST LEG IS ULTIMATE TARD!
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[SamC]

Please comment :P a spoon from life. Really got me thinking about what colours are really there, instead of it all be grey.

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[kikindaface]

Hey, nice to see you're improving in colors, and the last digital piece is quiete good :) But for the spoon it's different. I think you really have to work on a bigger canvas ( around 3000 pixels ) and set your opacity and flow on pressure sensitivity to blend correctly.
Now, I know that there are some members who are always painting an object on a white background, but I don't think it's a good idea ! You know, a color itself is nothing without another color ! When I started to paint what was around my object for the first time, I was amazed to see that my painting was better than usual, because my lights and shadow were better rendered! When I was painting my object in a blank background, I was thinking in term of colors. Now, I think more in term of light, shadow, reflected light, and other things, and my painting were more alive ! So keep it up ( and sorry, I won't call you kid anymore :) )

Edit : The prometheus|ANJ's tutorial is awesome, here is the link : tutorial (http://www.itchstudios.com/psg/art_tut.htm)

[Stevan]

Very young and very talented :) Keep drawing!

[SamC]

Walid D: Thanks! I'm actually doing all that stuff already (apart from the background colour,) I was just in a hurry, I was going out so it was pretty messed up strokes :P Here's a more refined version, as far as I can take it at the moment.

Stevan: Thanks :)

[Φ]

those muscle studies are really good!
and your going into color! cool man!! you´re on your way!

[wookiedabo]

looks like you draw a lot, quickly. might be an idea to have a couple of drawings that you spend more time on, in and amongst your studies. seeing as you do some digital stuff as well, might be good practice to get some grayscale studies in, play with describing form with lighting and all that schtuff. anyways, keep on churning stuff out, that spoon painting is already a noticeable step in the right direction.

[SamC]

bigfooTrooper: Hmmm the last leg is retarded, but that took me all day so thanks :D Yeah diving into colour's been really fun so far.

wookiedabo: Yeah you're right, I do tend to rush a lot of stuff. I might start trying to do bigger longer pieces as you said :D and I've been meaning to try greyscale for a while, I might try a SP? Cheers

Was meant to have 3 creature designs from last Sunday...I have this and some shitty colour pencil one :P Is meant to be a view from a plane..

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[Miles_]

Sam you know I love you. The speedy drawings from life are such a good idea! We gotta go out and do that some time. Cya around school and keep it up!

[SamC]

Miles_: I know...but I'd prefer it if you said it more :[ Yeah I hope we get round to that, maybe sometime in the Christmas holidays? Meh it'll be like 2 weeks until you check here again :P

More stuff from yesterday.

Attempts as design studies.
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Would be good with a small bonnet.
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Final sketch of Dynamic Energy Batman
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Faces no ref...they're a miserable bunch aren't they :(
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[SamC]

Self-Portrait. Not sure about the resemblance. Pretty messy and un-blended, I may take it further

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[Man Made God]

On the car and the Batman drawing, your rules of perspective are nowhere to be seen. There's no sense of volume or a coherent structure, for example with the car drawing, I can see your initial cuboid, but then it looks like you drew the car in one go. From the first box you should divide it up gradually, working from large to small. If it was a person you would start out by making the legs and the upper(head to hips) region roughly equal and then divide those sections up into head units and other familiar landmarks, all the while paying attention to your own perspective grid or indicators.

The portrait is too small, but looks pretty decent. You are definitely improving when it comes to drawing people and using your tablet. But if you want to invent unusual shapes like cars/buildings/animals... you need to improve your basic perspective and sense of proportion. Keep going!

[Nettle_Mountain]

That creature sketch is nice and clean, but colours are little pale. You could boos them up with two tools: selective colout and colour balance, really useful. experiment with that image can you boos colours more with those, could really help with digital paintings (i dont paint anything anymore without those)

And posemaniacs 45-60 second could help i think too

[sjuskadur]

Dude you have mad amazing progress =) loving it!

ps. it was quite funny when i scrolled through the first page.. all those poses and anatomy studies looked like they were a montage ! i thought it was cool... maybe it is just because i have no officially stopped sleeping! ;D haha

later

[walnut]

That creature could use a tad more contrast, it doesn't stand out from the BG. And keep watching those proportions. (Loomis has it wrong btw; real people tend to only be 7 to 7 1/2 heads) Have i told you that you've got good lines?

[SamC]

Man Made God: Thanks :) Perspective has always been a very big gap for me. I understand all the rules yada yada but the image always looks distorted when I use it. Lately I've just been making lines up as I go. It's time to do some perspective studies I guess.

Nettle_Mountain: Hey thanks, it really works :D And I'm desperately trying to get back into posemaniacs again :(

sjuskadur: Thanks. That PS made me lol this morning haha.

Walnut: Yeah I think it's recently become stark clear that I need to work on my perspective and proportion :O My worse fears! Cheers :)

Not much of an update. Got a big block of traditional stuff to upload. Just playing with the colours as nettle said :)

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[SamC]

Not really blended, was just trying to get colours and then timed out. Too hard to paint at the moment.. Any ideas what i could paint new? I wanna try plastic.

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[SamC]

All of yesterdays drawings :P I really need to buy a scanner for my room. I'm using the scanner-printer combo downstairs, so it involves effort to run up and down, networking placing the files, the scanner is really slow etc etc. And if the whole scanning, moving, resizing, renaming procedure couldn't be made worse, there's the copyright details :P

I might paint some eyes or something, start doing small parts of the face and piece it together in a no ref face before Christmas.

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Urm ignore that perspective attempt :bashful:
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[jackpot_anjr90]

Thanks for stopping by! You have great stuff comin' along here. It's obvious that you're working hard :)
Personally what I think would do you good is if you loosened up a bit. Some of your drawings seem restricted by the fine lines you have. Too many fine lines makes it look less realistic so I'd suggest using shadows to define the masses.

[algenpfleger]

Good to see you studying that much from life! Keep that shit up, you're gonna rule!

[Fshoo]

Hey man, thanks again for the comment in my SB. I really like the progress you're making. And while those studies are good, don't forget to have fun doing it, or you'll get stuck up. Man, you'll be rocking us all in time :c

[SamC]

jackpot_anjr90: Yeah, I'm really not sure where to take my lines, will try to use less and see where it takes me :D

algenpfleger: :O You came back! Yeah will do ;)

Fshoo: No problem, your work rocks. I always try and make my studies funner by throwing in some photo studies, they're my favorite :)

Yesterdays stuff
DSG. Looks like he's falling :(
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This one's head is tard
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Doodles
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Posemaniacs. Not enough of them/
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[SamC]

An eye.

[The7Artist7]

Ok dude - bare with me if this seems a little simple but to start your perspective study on cars have a go at drawing your own version over what I've done here try to not copy exact or anything but use my pic as ref on a layer below (I've intentionally left a few obvious mistakes in the perspective for you to fix - wing-mirrors, spoiler etc). The aim is to help you visualize your object in 3D space and be creative with the details while obeying the rules of perspective - try to visualize each part of the car in it's own 3D perspective box (don't actually draw each box) but joined to each other rather than the whole car as one big box that needs to be carved away.

Lol hope that makes sense!

Well have a go and when you've done that have a go at doing what I've done but for me to paint over (at the moment lets keep the detail rough and simple) - I personally like to imagine the 2 vanishing points and lines while I sketch out the pic then draw the VPs in and fix up any off perspective in the drawing. This way it helps me not be too boxy and tied down.

You've got a good study ethic - The way I'm hoping to help you get the hang of perspective should help you with your anatomy too. It's all about getting a picture in your head and seeing the structure of individual parts of the whole, then getting a feel for the placement of those in your own imagination's virtual 3D space.

Have fun and lemme know any perspective specifics you struggle with.

Cheers :yayca:

Edit: that black line across the top isn't the horizon line - it's just the edge of my drawing area in Adobe Illustrator :)

[SamC]

The7Artist7: I'd like to start by saying thanks again :D I wasn't entirely sure of the task here, but I sort of did a paintover type thing where i corrected the mistakes you left for me. Not sure if that's right :[ It helped though, seeing the curved lines that arced around the grid lines but still fit in, and which lines are acceptable to fit in if they move between the grid lines. Post back :)

Getting lazy, will try and get my game back on sometime

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[The7Artist7]

Hey Buddy - nice one! You've cottoned on to what I was trying to do with that task - I wanted you to see how when drawing curves in perspective you just have to find/use the common points. It's exactly like if you where trying to draw a good even curve with no perspective - You'd get both ends and draw the curve between the two. Have a look over this page and experiment a bit around these ideas :painting:

I like those little perspective studies - keep practicing, you're doing well :)

Edit: One thing about the paint-over of the Subaru is really think about what will be on the same perspective line - look at the wing-mirrors >_O ... >_o ... O.o ...the top of one is lining up with the bottom of the other! :/ lol no worries though this is all just practice :^^:

[SamC]

The7Artist7: Thanks I'll play around with a few of those. I was worried about what vanishing point a turning wheel would correspond to?

Another eye. Didn't feel I grasped that brownish subtle tone.

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[The7Artist7]

Here you go - hope it makes sense - any questions just ask :)

[Miles_]

Much improvement in the paintings man. The artists advice is good also, worth looking into. Keep it up man, do some more self portraits or life drawings:D

[SamC]

The7Artist7: I think I understand that, I'll try it out :)

Miles_: Thanks, I was thinking just that this morning.

Enviro from mind, had to do it for challenge. Biggest piece of crap ever. chose really rubbish colours, had absolutely no clue where to start with any of the detail on the fields, mountains or building. I will look back at this and laugh at how rubbish it is anyway :P

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[Lionese]

Very Good hun.

It's always so amasing to see the improvement of an artist and your improving alright, so keep it up!

I like your eyes very much, interesting colors you got on the very last one really lovely!

Pretty sweet prespective practices, go along with this flow.

The poses are still very "stiff" try to practice on more dynamic ones, it's really fun to do 'em! Just let yourself go, and always practice from photos and life/oudoors really handy for color picking, etc.

Wanna see what you come with next!

Much Love
Lion.

[SamC]

Lionese: Thanks :) Yeah I'll do a whole page of poses to try and some dynamicness down. Heh give it a few months and I might see some improvement.

Ok, I'll be honest. Only 2 of these are from today :( I got Fallout 3 and just got all meh on you guys. After I post this I will get to practicing that perspective pivot thing 7The Artist7 :D

Studying the bum
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Applying the bum
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Burne Hogarth
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Attempt at perspective and pose from photo.
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Pomegranate
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Perspective thumbnails, starting too feel more comfortable. And it's like a whirlwind of concepts flying around my head now :)
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Doodled some catwoman thing a bit sloppily
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Tryed to flesh the idea, and played with lines and shading
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Post-apocalyptic stuff
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[Φ]

cool you´re going into perspectives! wondering what you´ve been cooking for our challenge!
keep pushing
cheers

[SamC]

bigfooTrooper: That was post 157. Cheers

Yesterday and some of todays stuff. Need to crack my ass into gear D:

Perspective
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SP attempt, eyes are too far apart and mis-shaped
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My arm
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Morgan Freeman :D
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Poses from mind. I realized where I'm going wrong. If I attempt to do that pose of the guy falling in real life, I hunch forward or I put my arms over I lean backwards. What I'm not thinking about with figures at the moment is how each limb affects different positions of the body, so I get stiff disjointed figures.
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Shit character. What happened to my nice lines :'(
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Posemaniac, tried to get that lean
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Posemaniacs 45s
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The7Artist7 latest task, or half of it anyways. After my first 2 fails, I used ref but drew it in a diff perspective.
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[Miles_]

Much improvement dude! keep those updates coming, looking forward to where you are gonna be in a years time:}

[The7Artist7]

Keep it up! :D

with ref to your first pic in your last post - try really focussing on getting a picture of what you're going to draw in your head before you put pencil to paper. Maybe scribble and sketch on one piece of paper with the intention to throw it away but just to get the idea down v rough. then re-draw the same image on another piece after looking and thinking over what you could improve ...if you repeat this a few times with the same image you should manage to improve the pic quite noticeably within a short amount of time.

Try not to rush while still keeping a momentum to your drawing
Think over, imagine in your head first and remember what you know.
Take time to remember the progress and achievements you are making!
Look at things that go wrong with your studies as positives as they help you focus on what you can improve :)

With the perspective task - nothing wrong with using ref to help with details :) - but just draw it in a different angle from the ref pic - is this what you did? :painting: I'm looking forward to the next 3 cars - I will do paintovers when I can :yayca:

Cheers dude

[SamC]

Miles_: Will do :)

The7Artist7: I have the other three, I'll post that sometime tomorrow.

Tried to do a black and white. Was interesting to try blocking in black blobs and carving ideas with an eraser. Ended up with some fat guy who's carrying a box on his head/back across a battlefield.

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[The7Artist7]

Hehe Nice one I like it :) keep it up :steph:

[SamC]

The7Artist7: Thanks, it was fun. My car drawings aren't as good as they could be, sorry :(

Yesterday and the days before stuff. I had it all scanned ready to upload, but then I went round Miles'. I realised I wasn't spending enough time on poses etc, have some stuff to scan from that.

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[Φ]

bigfooTrooper: That was post 157. Cheers


SORRY dude! excuse my blindness! there´s just so much stuff in here!
so, as I don´t feel that I´m able to give advice in anatomy, I figured to say something about that enviro!

I think the effort was good ! also concept! hmm, colors are a bit off…
what I think you should do if you got time:
browse the web and get a nice landscape foto. then open I with photoshop, or whatever program u are working with and start to paint directly beside it!
I recommend to create an empty document and then copy your foto into it. you have to resize it so there´s enough space to paint your studie.... the you simply copy it, starting with raw linework...
while painting, try to nail the light situation and also try to understand how colors are blending, where sharp and where soft edges are placed etc. etc.

here´s a useful link: http://www.terragalleria.com/index.html

I hope I could help
keep working, you´re doing just fine!
cheers

[SamC]

bigfooTrooper: No worries man :) Yeah I'll do that soon, I wish school would end so I would have more time :( Cheers for the link, really cool ref site. I think I'm gonna do a lot of perspective stuff when school ends, enviro and cars galore hehe

Another B&W. Probably could be better, I'll post some hands and PMs and if I have the time maybe that enviro painting, I don't really have much time anymore :(

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[SamC]

Drawings from Miles' yesterday...learnt alot

Barbarian. Took like an hour getting the pose right, changing the weight and balance, everything. Really payed off so far I think, and it's better to take more time on it. WIP so far, worried about the rendering, I fear the neck onwards has lost any contrast and become dull.
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Rubbish lol IF ANYONE TELLS ME THE HEAD IS TOO SMALL, I KNOW :)
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Today's drawings

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[The7Artist7]

Hey dude - really liking your black and white pics :D - keep it up!

With the studies just keep doin em and I think you should work on structure and proportions with your anatomy a bit more - remember the skeleton! Once you have those down too you can put your muscle knowledge together with it and you'll be rockin :rocker:

I'll get some paint-overs/ responses to the latest perspective studies when I can - I'm kinda busy for a few days so don't worry I've not forgotten! And keep doing car studies - don't stop at six of em - you could even take this time to re-draw some/all of them at a larger size and develop them more :painting:

And remember the Batman challenge - don't worry if you havn't got your perspective totally sorted on it - have some fun and I tell you what - you should try doing it in your black and white style - that could be interesting!

Cheers :yayca:

[SamC]

The7Artist7: Yeah the skeleton is something I definitely don't think about enough, do you mean parts of the body where the skeleton is most prominent (elbow, knee, spine, pelvis etc.)? I'm gonna get a lot of studies done over the Christmas holz hopefully :) I'll try and work on the Batman thing on the weekend, I just look at the image now like "Wrong there, wrong there" haha.

Enviro painting just as bigfooTrooper suggested, will do these daily for two weeks and see where it takes me :)

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[kikindaface]

Rubbish lol IF ANYONE TELLS ME THE HEAD IS TOO SMALL, I KNOW :)


The head is not too small, it's the body which is too big !!

Anyway, the colors from your last painting are really cool, especially the sea ! Keep the digital painting up !

[SamC]

Walid D: Hehe I guess it depends how optimistic you are :P. Cheers, personally don't like it all, was a bitch to paint because it was such a pixally ref picture. Cya round :)

Will get some hands, sp and posemaniacs done later, really tired atm, schools just finished and I feel like I could sleep for days haha.

B&W...THESE ARE SO INSANELY FUN :D

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[SamC]

Enviro painting. I'm picking up on a lot of things for colour theory. For instance, the sea is completely grey but reflects the sun. The ship I drew looks metallic but only actually has one shade of grey in it, all the rest is blue. The warm colours tend to be yellow orange and red hues, whereas the cold ones are purple, dark blue. I attempted painting a person from ref before this, but failed quite quickly because the colours I used weren't subtle enough, and I ended up with oranges and purples flying around. I think I'm going to try a low tempt enviro as well today to mix things up, and maybe painting something from greyscale.

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[Φ]

dude! …yeah! exactly!
keep pushing! I see It growing good!
cheers

[The7Artist7]

Sweet! lovin these enviros and yeh B/W is so much fun eh! I'm off now till early Jan so I'll be spending more time on fun art stuff and should be able to give you some more pointers on perspective etc. got to go do some stuff right now but will be back soon to do those paintovers and respond to your questions :yayca: keep rockin dude!

[SamC]

bigfooTrooper: Cheers for the push up man, comments like that keep me trying :D

The7Artist7: Nice man and thanks again for the support and help :)

Was inspiring/torturing myself by looking at Alexander Pascenko's SB, got annoyed that I wasn't painting and tried to draw some bits of my face from life, sort of getting chunks before I try a SP. Skin tones are really hard, but I think I'm improving on them, they're a real bitch to paint >.< My chair faces away from the light so my skin looks darker, I guess when I get to my digi SP it'll all look fine.

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[Fraz]

Good job man. Loving the newest environment.
On the newest digi, the lips seem a bit off. The dark space between the lips is too intrusive.
Nice eye though, I would love to see you refine some stuff!

[Miles_]

Those are from life? awesome dude, real improvement.

[SamC]

Fraz: Cheers, I know I really should have taken more time to those lips. I'll try, I'm just really not confident with colour D:

Miles_: Yeah, thanks :) I wish I could see the improvement :P

Really really shit enviro. Do more >.<
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Pencils as of late. Need to sort my lines, I'm going back over them loads :( and do more studies. I sent off for a Bridgeman book so I won't be relying on my pc for study and get distracted by the internet :D Life stuff is a bit bad, sorry.
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[SamC]

Heh I'm either having a bad day or I'm suddenly shit at everything D:

I still suck at female anatomy
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I'M SO ANNOYED WITH THIS when i finished it i was like wow, it looks like me and it's probably the best I've ever drawn in my life :O Then the scanner raped it and i realized how distorted the eye is, and how shitty the values are.
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Something I can't be bothered to finish.
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Perspective and some crappy doodles
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I'm in a bad mood because I finally started to like my work and then put too much pressure on myself and died etc. Will probably take a break tommorow, I feel burnt out D: And I know, it takes time and stuff, I'm just being weird atm

[kikindaface]

hey dude ! I really loke your color enviro's studies ! Your eye's painting looks really good ! For your SP try to add more contrast. Use softer leads ! And I really like yourpirate's head ! Try to finish it , please ! Keep it up

[The7Artist7]

Hey - chin up buddy - it's not all so bad and we all have days when we feel like that about our work. Good plan to take a little breather but be encouraged that you're really improving! :painting: :steph:

:yayca:

[SamC]

Walid D: I'm using HB leads at the moment from being being on 2B. I prefer HB because I can go lighter, I'll just use more blacks and more whites. And I'll try and finish the pirate, I just don't think I have the patience to render all of him :[

The7Artist7: Cheers man, was feeling stressed out.

So in my weird little way, I decided to 'take a break' by planning a schedule of 7 hours of drawing :D Got loads to scan and loads more to do, but here is my digi life painting from that schedule. It's okay but the tones on that lime were difficult to capture.

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Used too much white, but it was a pretty strong light. Ehhh no excuses.

[SamC]

Scanned stuff, took way too long to scan man. Oh yeah, I see guests looking at this page quite a few times. All I can say is, sign up and get a SB. Best thing I ever did.

Fucked up the eye position on my SP. It's funny, one of my eyes is at a slight tilt, just not that badly haha can't wait to see my SP in another 2 months :O

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[Man Made God]

That's a good days work! Your pencils are coming on nicely, and your digitals are unusually good. Did you use porn as a reference :tihi:?

[Φ]

loving the digitals! man, your going fast on these!
can´t wait to see you in a year!
keepatit
cheers

[Miles_]

Badass. :asslick:

[SamC]

Man Made God: Yep, why not? We usually draw naked models anyway :P And cheers man, unusually good is not a compliment I receive often :D

bigfooTrooper: Will do buddy :D

Miles_: :yayca:

So urm just sketching around to wind down for the day. Pose no ref, I got to apply quite a bit of study to this. Not happy with the legs at all, will draw loads of legs tomorrow. Does anyone know a tutorial or good book for placing feet in the right position, or should I just use life? Oh yeah my secret target has been to get a really good SP before Christmas, hence them being daily lately. I think I'm almost there, just need to sort out my eyes. Need to set a new target on a new landmark.

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[Nibras]

AWESOME!
AWESOME!
wow dude your kicking ass
with all em goals and then more goals and then hardwork OMG BRO!
your stuff is improving alot! your gonne be doing amazing
keep it up man!
Last one is out of proportions but massive improvment

[SamC]

Lilnebo: Thanks :D

So not started drawing yet today, I feel like actually winding down for a bit now, I'll do posemaniacs and SP as usual and maybe I painting because I enjoy them.

Never really painted from mind and it's something I really want to start doing, but it's like ergh where do I start. Do I just keep painting from photos and life until it happens? Well applied some stuff I was reading about different types of light etc.

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[Nibras]

I have to say bro, your studies are sick.... in a sick way.... lOL!
Your digitals are crazy though! just too good!
But come on! don't you have parents or something your freakin drawing porn....... at 14...
I mean ... lol
Haha keep it up anwayz

[SamC]

lilnebo: lol thanks :D

Just some stuff from mind in PS that I feel like sharing :)

First up a b&W generic bald sci-fi soldier :P
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No idea where this came from, just made a black blob and it developed from there. I'm proud of this because when I thought, how do I paint glass, I thought back to an astronaut helmet I drew a few pages back and just did it (I hope).
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[SamC]

Stuff for the latest challenge. Take 3 photos and insert spheres into them with according lighting etc. Only 2 at the moment. I don't think I did too well realism wise.

EDIT: Fixed these sphere photos

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[PieMonster]

The light coming onto the sphere from the ground shouldn't be blue, it should be green, and darker, whereas the side that isn't lit by the sun, but leaning upwards should have bluer light.

Your studies are great, if you keep going like this you'll be a pro in no time, haha. Keep it up! :D

[SamC]

Piemonster: Cheers man. I'll go back and fix them :)

Yesterdays drawings:

Posemaniacs 45s
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Latest SP
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Since it's been 2 month of drawing seriously from this day, I whipped up a lot SP progression, not only does my hair grow, I actually get slightly better at drawing :D
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It's cool seeing the features and rendering sort of form. When I look back it doesn't seem like that much time, 2 months, but the start, which was really hard, seemed to go on forever. I've met some amazing people and seen some incredible art work in such a short space of time. I look forward to seeing where I am in another 2 months. I have my "Get good at SPs before Christmas" goal knocked down, I think my new target is "Develop a greater understanding colour temps and harmonys before the 24th of February." Gonna go relax until Christmas now, won't be posting till about New Years, but I will have a hell of a lot to show you :) Merry Christmas.

[kikindaface]

For the first sphere, I think you need to paint the shadow really darker when it's in contact with the ball, a bit like you made for the second sphere ! Still in the first one, there is not enough sunlight, so I don't think you need tu put the highlight dot! Just add a lighter area ! Your improvment is awesome !

[Shanemeh]

Nice improvement.

[SamC]

Walid: Cheers mate fixed it up.

Shanemeh.: .thanks

Ok last post before new year, actually gonna go relax now :P Had an insanely good assassin B&W but PS crashed before I could save >:(

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[Man Made God]

One thing about your pencils, when you're laying down the initial tones, try to cover large areas with a few strokes, then work big to small like you would when painting. You can still get the directional hatching effect but you'll get less of that "scratchy" effect and smoother blending. You've actually already started this, when you look back at your older stuff, your hatching is more unified and you have better transitions. Look through some pencil-heavy skecthbook threads and you'll see what I mean about the initial tone. You might want to try using a range of leads too. We all have favourites but it's really useful if you can switch between hard and soft.

[Mokinzi]

Pretty cool to watch your improvement with those selfportraits O_o It's pretty huge!

Hmm... Those red ball things up there.. I haven't done it before, but I think you made the second light source there too grey as it hit the ball. PieMonster probably hasright about it, anyhow.
But well, it seems like you focuse much on eyes and the mouth in your facial studies, but what about the nose? Your noses aren't bad, but it seems ike you are less sure about that part, and you know, it's right in the middle ^^

Great studies and nice fruit, keep it up! And keep on improving, you're doing great! And yes, thanks for your advice on my page!

[Φ]

the improvement with your SP is pretty phukn amazing! Oo
I admire your dedication, rock on like that!

happy new year dude! I expect you here again, on january first and I don´t care how bad your hangover is :D !!
see you
cheers

[spaztastic]

Hey thanks for the post. I know I gotta drop the anime,no excuse, but those are pretty old studies...at least one to two years... I'm self taught...and let's just say when I taught myself I was going through a Final Fantasy/DBZ type craze. So I pretty much skipped(to my detriment) all the life drawing and classical studies. I am having to relearn quite a bit, any help is welcomed and appreciated and you will certainly be seeing more studies. So again thank you, I really appreciate the time you took to post and share some wisdom.

[SamC]

Man Made God: Cheers man, I think I've started following your advice, using bigger strokes first (I wasn't before..) but things usually end up being scribbled as I worked down into detail. Just need to take the time really to go down from big strokes into detail, but sound advice :D

Mokinzi: Thanks, and yeah got some nose studies for you.

bigfooT: Haha well I'm here, where's your stuff :O

spaztastic: No worries :P

Urm studies and stuff. Was away for a bit relaxing and then visiting family. Moleskinning it up :D

Stuff from a week ago
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Rorschach!
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Small Heads...Need to make them bigger
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Studies
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Characters..need bigger heads
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Sucky Perspective, didn't take the time to calculate it out
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Noses
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Black And white, not too fond of it
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Enviro from mind, second one, improvement, need greater contrast and can't be bothered to add more detail, has taken too long already
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Need higher contrast, darker darks, especially under orange light
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Feel I've become all talk. Need to build solid work routine again.

[SamC]

Yesterdays sketches. It's my birthday :). Give crits or whatever on what I need to study more of.

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[zelda_geek]

Hi, happy birthday!!!

I'm really impressed by the consistency in your work and it looks like you're on the right track. The anatomy is coming along, but be sure not to rush it. Use your time.

Keep it up:D

[SamC]

zelda_geek: Thanks man, you're too right. I'm really impatient lately, not sure what it is.

Feeling pretty low about my work today. Associating things with negativeness which is really really bad. Will sort myself out for tomorrow.
This took me like half an hour, which is disgraceful really. Not taking the time and I'm not sure how to, just really wanna go procrastinate. I'm worried this is happening because I've not drawn a lot in the last week. Will read motivational stuff and do a ton of drawings.

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[SamC]

Sorted it out now. No longer scared of making a mistake. Read this (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showpost.php?p=635510&postcount=182)

Non reffed doodles, just trying to let go of fear of being 'bad'.

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[SamC]

Anyone out there? Some bridgeman arm study and a photo reffed guy doing the same thing with his arm, just to back it up

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[Φ]

aha! gotcha! you scanned your moleskine! and we can see that your portraits are really small. they´re even smaller cuz I know the size of a moleskine!
man, how are you gonna put detail in there?
try to draw bigger. use A4 or at least the entire page of moleskine!

otherwise looking great!!

happy birthday btw.

cheers

[SamC]

bigfooT: Are we talking pocket or large moleskine. Because that was in my large, so it's an average sized drawing. I'm probably just making excuses, I'll do it for you :P

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[SamC]

Drew this one a lot bigger, whole a4. It was alot easier. I started out by drawing where the light will change with a line and did almost a cel shading process and then kept dividing it up.

GUYS PLEASE I REALLY NEED CRITIQUE, POINT OUT MY FLAWS!! I HAVE NO IDEA WHERE TO GO AT THE MOMENT.

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[SamC]

Leg Studies.

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[kikindaface]

Hey dude ! Well, if you need orientation, i think you need to draw more from life, but a lot more you know, For example, try to do that during about 2-3 weeks, and you will see your improvment! You also need to do more digital studies FROM LIFE !! You can also do values studies ( a bit like i did weeks ago ) it helps a lot ! Try to also more understand light, try to render some simple shapes, to understand how light hit the object, where to place bounced light, that kind of stuff ! You can also do more enviros thumbnails ! Here are a few ideas about what you can do ! I hope it will help you ! Keep working !

[SamC]

Walid: Will do more stuff from life like people and faces and digi fruits. Will also try more enviro thumbs but they don't really hype me if you know what I mean. Enviros without colour are pretty boring to me.

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[SamC]

Some dogshit I scraped off the pavement...just for you :)

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I look like a rapist in this :(

[My57]

practice faces. Do face studies. Anatomy still needs improvement. Do more anatomy studies.

lol thats about buddy. nothing else really to it. do lighting practices as well if you wanna for shading and stuff.

[SamC]

My57: lol great stuff man

60 60s posemaniacs, more stuff later

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[SamC]

Eyes are fucked but sexy rendering

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[SamC]

Legs from Bridgeman, photos and mind. My SB is so neglected from love :(

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[SamC]

Random B&W. Wasn't sure how to light the body in the end.

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[Φ]

dude! your workload is AMAZING dude!
and you´re really improving loads!

my only advice would be to slow down a bit and take your time on your studies…try to get the most out of every study…
doing fine man!

cheers

[Man Made God]

Your thread isn't neglected, people don't have time to reply because you're posting 4 times a day. Try compressing your daily updates into one post. It will increase the amount of art you can have on one page(because each pages has 30 posts), and people will be more likely to crit your work as a whole that day rather than just specific parts of it.

I agree with bigfooTrooper, it's great that you are repeating your studies, but it would probably be more efficient if you balanced repetition with accuracy more, don't worry if it takes time to get everything right, it's worth it.

As for content, I think you're doing everything right, keep things varied like you have been. :)

[walnut]

Your character designs tend to have a long torso and short stubby legs. Guess that's something you can look out for. You already seem to know about the small heads so i won't mention that. I'd also try some variation in exercises. Try some different techniques or materials, do some sketches from observation, something in colour ... I wouldn't want to see you getting in a rut from drawing the same stuff all the time. And instead of posemaniacs i'd suggest using real people for reference. So, keep it up, you're doing well!

[The7Artist7]

dude! your workload is AMAZING dude!
and you´re really improving loads!

my only advice would be to slow down a bit and take your time on your studies…try to get the most out of every study…
doing fine man!

cheers

I agree! keep it up and quit beating yourself up! ;)

Oh yes - I'm back from holidays now but unfortunately feeling not so well these last few days - great to see you still plugging away at studies :painting: just remember to stop the study-mobile every now and then to admire the view :yayca:

Rock on buddy

[_Forrest]

lookin good dude, keep it up :wink:

[SamC]

Thanks guys. I'm not sure what's wrong with me lately, I just can't seem to relax and spend hours on one piece, it's all half an hour jobs :(...hope things get better when I'm back into the school routine and not cooped up at home..

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This self-portrait scares me, some fat angry kid with the same hair as me looking back at me

[walnut]

Some weird hair on that self-portrait, but not bad overall... anyhow, about your question in my sketchbook: generally the crotch lies in the middle of the body length (includes the head), the knee lies under the middle of the total leg length and the head tends to fit about 7 to 7 1/2 times in the total body length. I know it's 8 times according to Loomis and others, but really, they're full of it. That should answer it i think. To get the hang of it it's mainly a matter of observation and repetition.

[Nibras]

Yeah man hahaha
Like they said compress those posts all in one thing, and slow down
Looking good, try to chillax with the characters, have some fun with them.
I don't know really all I can say is slower studies, REALLY studying
Also be careful with your lines and shading
Keep it up

[SamC]

Walnut: Cheers dude, definitely stuff to to think about there. Thanks :)
Lilnebo: Thanks yeah I'm trying :P

Face from teh mind, has nice rendering and stuff I think, used 2b on shadow on helmet which looks cool, might try it again. Facial proportions and helmet texture could be worked on.
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Legs are from mind and study from reference books and stuff
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And a pot thing I found in my kitchen, could be better but I have enough time to improve I guess :D
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[Φ]

yeah, that pot thing looks good! well…the form is a bit off, but I really get that metallic feeling! well done!
and I´m a big fan of the viking dude! I think specially the beard and the left side of the helmet look good!

keep at it!
cheers

[SamC]

Bigfoot: Cheers. I agree with you about the form, it looks a tad mangled haha, I'll hop back on the perspective train and try and do something about that :)
Interesting your fave bits were done in 2b, the rest is HB (what I use at the moment for some reason) would it look better all in 2b or is the contrast of light and dark better?

Body from mind, HIS right arm looks a bit skewy but it's decent.
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Digi from mind, not so much a piece, just experimenting with shape textures indentions and stuff. I always think my digis are rubbish whilst I'm making them but when I zoom out it's a bit like ..wow. But still so much to improve, need to do more skin.
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[_Forrest]

That last piece with the marble looks really good. About your human figures though,
They seem so stiff you need to try more poses then just standing, even if they don't
look the greatest at least you know that you need to fix it :wink:

[SamC]

Magezhilo: Too true man. I'll start trying more poses, but it's always just like urm where to start haha. Cheers dude.

It may seem as if my work load has slowed down recently...it has lol. I like to think this stuff is better than the rushed stuff tho. And turning my pc off to work makes so much difference :blahblah:

Oh got a book called Mastery by George Leonard. It's awesome, talks about work ethics and how to apply it to anything. Mainly that there are plateaus of working, the long stretches where you feel you go nowhere, they you have a spurt of drawing really well and declines slightly as you settle on the next slightly higher plateau. Just get it, it's amazing, explained so many of my thoughts that I wasn't sure anyone else really understood.

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tried to paint skin here..failed but it's okay I guess
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[Man Made God]

The book sounds good. Improvement is sporadic, but one thing you can do to keep your improvement rate high is to start fresh on new subjects, since improvement is always greatest at the beginning stages.

Your studies are looking tighter. About the skin: your darks are looking "dirty" or "muddy". And it looks like you're just going for pure white light with no secondary hues. But even so, there should be more hue variation due to blood flow, skin thickness etc. You should really try getting a lot of references together for this one and attempt it again, I think it's worth spending a lot of time on. Keep at it. :)

[Craz]

When you're shading large things, i.e when you have to make long pencil strokes or cover large areas, use the side of the pencil. This will make it smoother instead of this wishy-washy thing you get sometimes. The exceptions would be in tight or thin spaces or when your shading with some kind of hatching technique.
Usually you should be using as great a range of pencils as you can. I spent about two years making the HUGE mistake of only drawing with an HB. Now I have problems with value, even in digital. For example, your Viking guy looks a lot better than most of your work because you had more contrast with that 2B. However, some of the cast shadows over his eyes (cast by the brow and lid) and underneath the helmet could be 6 or even 7B.

[SamC]

Man Made God: Yeah it's that female skin that fascinates me because I truly don't understand how you're meant to go about painting it lol, I'm definitely going to gather more ref and get my head down on cracking skin sometime. Oh an thanks for constantly coming by and giving constantly useful criticism, it means a lot :)

Craz: I used that technique on the last rendered woman here (it was all in 2b), I found it was helpful for getting down an initial tone, but needed to be worked into. I'm using mechanical HB at the moment, but I have a few 2b pencils that go blunt very quickly, so I'm going to go get a few new mechanical pencils and a ton of different leads. Cheers

B&W
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Character Set studies. I see what Walnut means about small heads, long torso and short stubby legs now. Need to do some stickmen sometime.
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Some viking from mind, tried to play with design here but found myself planting down random meaningless lines lol Also, his beard is completely stiff that it is not affected by the neck armour haha
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More character set studies, rendered one in 2b
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[My57]

hey i see improvement! keep it up. I would recommend more arm studies as some of your arms are a little short i think.

[SamC]

My57: Hmm I wouldn't really say more arm studies, knowing the muscles in the arm and having them the wrong size are quite different, I'll just do some loomis head proportions, since all of my proportions suck haha

Spent quite a while on this but it didn't really go anywhere, at first I liked it but then I realized there were loads of mistakes. Will do some loomis tommorow.

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[SamC]

Proportion Notes.

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Character, thought this was well proportioned, realized the head was TINY, redid the head, scanned it in, and realized it was still tiny. Edited it in photoshop because it looked ridiculous. I have a real problem with heads with hair on, can look quite distorted to me. And the legs are really big.. :[
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[wookiedabo]

characters torso is a bit long mate, think thats the problem. lehs are on the chunky side too. the head looks fine actually. anyway, good studies, ya got a great work ethic from the looks of things.

[SamC]

wookiedabo: ah trust me in reality the head is reallyyy small. Printed off the loomis proportion sheet for reference on my next figures. Cheers

So I was thinking, need to draw, need to paint need to do so and so. Just realised...what's the big rush Sam? Will be slowing down a bit, need to start doing other stuff. I could burn my nuts off becoming good really quickly (by doing this hefty heft workloads D:) but at the end of the day I'll still be following this routine, I'd rather have a laid back schedule and have more fun with other stuff, so I'm gonna take it easier now.

Demented self portrait...don't ask. Mistakes make greatness!
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My Hands
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SP from side sort of
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Painting from reference..not sure if this makes a difference to anyone but I paint straight into colour, all of my paintings are, it's harder but I think it'll pay off in the long run :)
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[Φ]

liking the digit! ( ya did expect me to, right? haha)
about painting straight: remember that I mentioned that form on that metallic thing is a bit off? I think with a proper line-work (even if only very simple) under the painting, you can control such things with ease. maybe that would give your paintings an extra kick!
and I think the SP from side is really looking good. lips nose and hair look ´specially good to me!
man keepup, doing great!
cheers

[Adrian Wilkins]

Hey Sam sorry for staying away so long! I've been quite busy the last few weeks!

But you've ben drawing like cray which is awesome, you have just the rigt attitude that a suscessfull artist need to reach his goals, You've been improving good but I think you could push your seflf even further

this (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=562084&d=1231696811) and your lat digi paiting are really nice keep pushing it and crnk oout those anatomy studies like crazy, that's what I'm doing rght now. gonna post them tomorrow
or thursday!

keep up the good work mate!

[Fraz]

Your hands are coming along nicely, however I feel that the fingers should be longer in comparison to the palms in almost all of them.
Nice environment too. How about trying a more complicated one with various buildings or objects?

[Craz]

Nice hands. The environments good -nice colours- but some of the erasing on the trees doesn't make any sense.

[SamC]

bigfoot: Cheers man, and yeah you know but just to clarify to anyone else, I meant I don't use greyscale, then overlay and working in, I just lay down base colours and blend and keep changing etc.

Hygami: Ah thanks, and yeah, my target is always 2 miles ahead then what I am, keeps me burning away haha. Will do some anatomy tommorrow, so much to learn still.

Fraz: Thanks, need to work in a foreshortening mind frame with hands I guess. Will try a more complicated enviro sometime at the weekend and take a ton of time on it.

Craz: Cheers and yeah that's just plain laziness on my part-won't happen again.



Ok could someone explain why the head looks small in this, the body length follows the rules. Could it be the width of the body? I overcrossed the mark of 2 and 1/3 heads because it looked small at the time, but I think it may be the problem..someone help me out. EDIT: with fresh eyes I can see the legs look really small and the arms really big...I kept to the loomis rules, kindof stumped.
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face from mind....fucked up
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[Craz]

I've measured it, and your body is slightly too wide; the head too thin. The trapezius is pretty massive; maybe that has something to do with it. I think it's mostly how you've done the rest of the body. The forearms appear to start before the arms end and the legs appear to start at the top of the pelvis (in the human form, not your drawing). The male body, I think, gives the impression of being hoisted up, like a pair of trousers belonging to an overzealous man. Your arms are too long- they come to the middle of the thighs with the fingers extended. The arms should not go further out than the shoulders. You're drawing it too stiffly; the figure lacks 'spring'. Go back and pay attention to every contour of the Loomis drawings. Get a feel for the dynamism of the figure.

[SamC]

Craz:I'd like to say I love you for that haha it's so refreshing to get indepth criticism, and it definitely makes me work harder. Well I started looking at Loomis for what you might mean and found the page about the circles inside the body that correspond to perspective..and thought shit I didn't even know about this..it definitely helps give a feeling of depth instead of an outline. You're definitely right about the hoisting as well, my legs weren't too short, they were just placed below the crotch line, whereas they need to start higher. Now I just need to work on keeping everything from getting too wide outside the shoulder line..may I ask how you can have an open legged pose but keep it from looking way too wide? The giant trapezius was an issue as well, there was no room for leeway on length of the shoulder..er i'm rambling and I've written too much haha..thanks :D

Shoulder studies..err might not seem like much but this took me a whole podcast to do so :D
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Character half reffed, I say that, the top is loosely reffed but the legs are sortof all reffed, hence they're really wide because I wasn't sure if they could pass the mark..obviously not. Length is fine though as far as I know.
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Got home and did the proportions again considering what craz had said and i think it looks fine apart from big hands and knees seem a bit low.
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The stuff is alright actually, sort of feeling happy with my progress lately, not too fast not too slow, Drawing these was refreshing, which is nice since I haven't slept properly in quite a few days. Ur can't remember much because of lack of sleep and my brain is a mess, sorry about all this writing!

[hunchback]

hey dude. i like that your working on those proportions
that should help you in the long run.

try using long lines and big shapes when you start drawing, and keep it light until your set to go ahead and shade.

the hard work will pay off keep it up xD

[Craz]

The arm doesn't bulge outwards when the viewer is directly in front or behind it, as in (most) frontal proportion drawings. Perhaps one thing giving you difficulties keeping the body in between the shoulders is that you turn the arms.

Observe:
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You can probably ignore the numbered lines, as this example is Loomis's advertising ideal of eight heads, rather than the normal seven and a half. I don't know all the differences between the two, so use your own judgement. (Plus, you're counting in different directions.)
Even so, look at how the arm is thinner than the forearm when viewed from this angle. It kind of looks like you've tried to draw the forearm at a different angle than the arm. Pick one (I think the example shown here is best, since it's the natural state of the relaxed arm) and think about how the arm and forearm are built and joined. Always think about structures creating contours, not the other way around.

Hope this rambling helped.