ccsears sketchbook

[ccsears]

homework homework homework....


zedensod, fushandchups--Thanks!

[DefiledVision]

great work man, how about giving me a tip on where to start? thanks.

[Niam]

Amazing pictures as always!! I wish my homework looked like yours

[Velocity Kendall]

i always like a running thing! nice work!
with shadows and kicked up dust theyll look really good.

[ccsears]

VelocityKendall--Thanks man! I'm gonna have to go back and work on the un-motion-blurred version to add a few things, but this was kind of a preview to make sure it worked. lotta work, but it's been kinda fun.

Niam--Thanks!

DefiledVision--Thanks! I'm not sure exactly what you mean by a starting point. Different people enter this career / industry in different ways. Anyway, maybe this will help a little:

1) painting vs. drawing. my money is usually on drawing. excellent draftsmanship is generally a prerequisite for good painting, and you can literally never get enough drawing mileage. that said, when you reach "a certain point" in your drawing studies, you will progress faster if you start working on painting in parallel because a painterly approach will identify new ways to see things--i.e. in shapes instead of lines, soft vs. hard edges, etc.

as i've said before, and as my teacher taught me, there are 4 elements to any painting: i) shapes ii) values iii)edges iv)colors. these are listed in order of importance, so you can see that creating good shapes is the most important thing, assigning them a good value is the next most important, etc. etc. just based on that logic, drawing--the making and placement of good shapes--is the natural starting point.

2) where to start drawing-- again, this is just based on my personal experience, so take it with a grain of salt. you can either start with i) human beings or ii) perspective. some people might suggest iii) landscape / full composition as a third option, but i think that is more advanced than i and ii.

3) so if you're going to start drawing human beings, where do you start? anatomy? quick sketch? heads? nudes? clothed figures? photos? the choices are endless. again, relying on my teacher's advice, start with the head. the reasons are pretty simple--the head is simplified as a block or egg-shaped form, so it has a kind of logic to how light hits it. any technical issue you will face with the full figure is also addressed in head drawing, but the advantage is that heads aren't posed too difficultly. drawing an arm/hand in foreshortened perspective is much harder than learning how to draw or place a nose on a head. the reason is just because there are more degrees of freedom in drawing arms and hands; noses don't move much. also, you're never at a loss for subject matter. if you can't attend a life drawing class, you can find heads in any newspaper or magazine or google image search. once you are confident in drawing heads, you can approach quick sketch and figure drawing without worrying about running out of time.

4) so you're going to learn perspective... do it right. there is no shortcut to learning how the mechanics of perspective work. learn how to identify the horizon line and place vanishing points. learn the relationships between the vanishing points--like how a roof or staircase works relative to the sides of a cube, how shadows are cast, etc. there are good books and videos about all of this. but basically learning perspective well will teach you how to see many of your own mistakes instead of wondering why something doesn't look right. i actually learned a lot of this stuff when i was 9-10 years old because i wanted to draw fighter jets--way before i learned how to draw people. there are still things i'm a little rusty/shaky on, but if you want to do any kind of hard surface concept design, you need to be able to sketch in perspective. when i see lines heading to the wrong vanishing point, it really bugs me. the rest of the picture could be great, but it will always ruin it a little for me.

5) ok, fine, so you're decent at drawing people and things in perspective... then work on composition. learn some of the basic guidelines--learn to avoid awkward tangents and overlaps. learn how to create a focal point with edges, contrast, color, shapes, etc. get awesome at visual rhythm. spend a long time drawing everything inside of a rectangle--literally. draw everything in rectangles so you know where to crop an image or place it. if you want to do environment design, this is probably the number one thing. learning how to create space is really an exercise in good composition.

6) ok, so you want to actually be able to support yourself and make a living. well, if you're about 25 years old or younger, for most jobs you will need to learn--Photoshop, ZBrush, and some kind of 3D program--Maya, Modo or 3DSmax. and trust me, learning all that shit takes time, is frustrating, and SUCKS. it is all worth it though. think of it as triple-job-insurance. different jobs may or may not require the zbrush and modo stuff, but speaking from personal experience, it is becoming more and more common for everyone to at least be able to create basic placeholder assets to paint over in photoshop. at the very least, learn google sketchup. being a badass in photoshop is an absolute must though. clipping masks, channels, custom brushes, smudge tool, layer blend modes, all of that stuff is super-important. nobody knows all of it or uses all of it all the time, but you will build up a workflow and a collection of tricks and workarounds as you practice. it is important to treat this as a serious medium like oil painting--the techniques you know and use will affect your finished product. if you're mid-career or older like me, years of traditional experience can kind of make up for some of that or help speed-up the learning curve. but if you're in high school or something...learn it. everyone you will be competing against for a job will be learning it too.

--------------------

anyway, those are a few basic starting points. like i said, i don't really know what you had in mind, but those are the first things that occur to me. i hope that helps.

[ccsears]

some more work on it. slowly but surely...

[ccsears]

work in progress

[JoshB]

Dude you're stuff is CRAZY good! I love the mechs and figure drawings. So much detail and style! Thank you for posting your stuff.

[llex_paul]

Really nice stuff! I feel inspired bu your brush strokes and want to create something more dynamic. Your works radiate dynamism!

[ccsears]

llex_paul-- Thanks!
JoshB-- Thanks!

[ccsears]

[MightCrawler]

Like the last thing, I really enjoy this conceptish things with variations=) and thanks a lot for the post witch answered mr. Defiledvisions question, very interesting reading, thanks for sharing

[GEB]

Love those bird things! Meep meep!

[DefiledVision]

Thanks man, I guess I'm gonna start a sketchbook and start rubbing the pencil on it.

[Quike Garcia]

These last variations are really great, I specially like 2,3 and 5 in the lower row.

[Mane]

those character concepts are looking great the 4th on the first row especially

[ccsears]

trying to crank out another one... happy belated Thanksgiving to y'all.



Mightcrawler--Thanks! I've actually started listening to Mr. Delicious / Henchman21(?) 's Crimson Conversations on YouTube. It's pretty interesting to hear other artists' opinions about this stuff. I still think the best analogy is to music and how many different forms musical skills, tastes and careers take. The nice thing about seeing all the stuff online is you really get a sense of that. No one approach works for everyone. Some guitar players can't read music at all, some have perfect pitch, some just do their own thing, and some study really hard. The only thing they probably have in common is that they are just totally committed and immersed in it.

GEB--Haha Thanks! I know I've got a subliminal Roadrunner thing going on.

DefiledVisions--Thanks! No Problem. Bust out the pencil and start crankin' man.

QuikeGarcia--Thanks! Yeah, these were fun to do. Wish I had more time to play with them. There is a story involved with it, but it's still getting formulated right now.

Mane--Thanks!

[Vylla]

I have zero useful things to say to you, so I'll just be over here flailing at how good your stuff is. So here I go. Flailing time! Whee!

(Never stop drawing, ever.)

[ozark]

Are those dune concepts for a serious project or just for personal fun ? I get the vibe that you're pushing yourself to create a coherent universe of your own. You're obviously doing a splendid job if that's truly the case.

[ccsears]

Vylia--Thanks! Very nice of you to say, but I know I still have a lot to learn.

ozark--Thanks! They're for something semi-serious, but I'm also doing them as homework for a class I am taking at Red Engine Studios.

[Cabbage Caterpillar]

OMGGG so jealous of your composition and values....

[S Ciaffaglione]

#2510 and #2496 are really lovely. Glad I found this SB.

[Quike Garcia]

I'm really liking this last piece. Feels huge

[Overtoom]

This personal project seems so interesting! Loving the setting and the cultural distinct look of the characters, really cool.

[Daria_Arbuz]

Awesome, I love your raw brush strokes.
Keep up the good work!

[DanielFadness]

Your ball point pen work is amazing. I really love your hatching! Would you be able to give me some tips on hatching or exercises for my drawings? They are sloppy by comparison and could really use a critique - http://conceptart.org/forums/showthr...dness-Sketches

Thanks for the inspiration!

[Hearthling]

I just discovered your sketchbook and ohman your designs are so amazing!!!!! I love those burqa designs and the cathedral entrance piece are killer, dude!

[ccsears]

more work in progress on that character...



CabbageCaterpillar--Thanks! Those are two things I definitely have spent a lot of time trying to improve, so it's nice to hear!

S Ciaffaglione--Thanks!

Quike Garcia--Thanks! Getting that sense of scale has always been my downfall with doing environments. More often than not I spend hours cropping and extending over and over again. I always wind up with something 10000 pixels wider than I intend.

Overtoom--Thanks! I'm trying to give it that kind of cultural depth. Not sure how successful it will be, but I'm trying!

Daria_Arbuz--Thanks! I'm trying to pay more attention to that lately. Sometimes it gets a little too sketchy and brushy.

Daniel Fadness-- Thanks Daniel! I will try to stop by your SB soon. I've only got about a week and a half left to finish a bunch of stuff for the class presentation, so I'm kind of getting my butt kicked right now.

Hearthling-- Thanks!

[kingkostas]

Now thats a great immersive world you are building here chris!!! Pure design!!! Keep inspiring

[ccsears]

sketches



kingkostas--Thanks man! You've been busy as hell too, I see. you keep inspiring as well!