Diedra's sketchbook Vol. 1 - closed

[Leo Ki]

I like how you try to catch lively attitudes in some of your sketches. May I suggest you try the same in your no-reference work? It's more difficult than standard attitudes, but it's far more interesting and motivating. When drawing so, don't hesitate to experiment a lot of slight variations until your eyes tell you it clings, and if this doesn't work, start again from scratch. I don't know if this is an efficient method, it's only my way of doing it.

[dierat]

Cool suggestion! I'll keep that in mind!

One thing I've noticed (and I think I heard this somewhere else too) is it helps to have the pose you're drawing fully drawn-up in your imagination, and then try to draw it the way you see it in your head. Still haven't gotten it figured out, but that's something I want to start trying more.

Some more sketches without ref:




And an in-process pitcher from life (not finished), and my hand (from observation) with a dying sharpie marker:



lol

[mosh]

Hi Dierat

I really really like your colored in sketches
and lots of beauty in your sharp nice colors

ausom art and love to see some more
good day
Mosh

[Leo Ki]

One thing I've noticed (and I think I heard this somewhere else too) is it helps to have the pose you're drawing fully drawn-up in your imagination, and then try to draw it the way you see it in your head. Still haven't gotten it figured out, but that's something I want to start trying more.

I usually try to do so too, but I doubt the human mind often builds full fledged pictures in imagination, it rather builds several kinds of abstract representations which we try to match and put together by drawing. By drawing we actually help our mind to get closer to the goal, and in the same time we lose some parts that are not visual but are associated with the "vision". My two cents...

Another thing I wished to say is to try to catch the wide lines and curves of an imaginary pose, not just the usual anatomical lines and volumes. In static as well as dynamic attitudes, there are some recurrent curves that can run from a foot to a shoulder or from a hand to a hip that I think are present in our mind (and hence in our imagination) and help contruct the whole shape.

One problem I see in your latest no-ref sketches is the neck and head. Maybe try to draw a lot of no-ref busts with various head orientations, paying attention to the major muscles and the jaws.

I'm impressed by your pitcher with its reflections and I'm waiting to see it finished. That's something I wouldn't have enough patience to make so far.

[pagedown]

Great SB work so far. The pitcher in painter is turning out to be your best piece i think. What brush are you using in painter to get the square oil brush stoke?. One thing i notice is the bottom ellipsis doesn't match with the object perspective its sitting on. Im gonna go play around in painter now!
Keep posting bro.

[CouchPotato]

I really like the pitcher dierat, you've really made the metallic texture come out. Were that I can do as well haha.

For your humans, I still feel that they are a bit on the small side. The body looks to be like it's about 6.5 to 7 head proportions. Personally, I feel more comfortable with at least 8, but I understand that 7 is still within acceptable limits. What's not quite right though is that the head is too big for what you draw with the body usually. I remember you said something before about not having enough space at the end of the paper by the time you come to the legs. Perhaps I can suggest that either you go back to the head after you're done, erase and make the head smaller? Or you just draw border lines for yourself. Fix an upper ceiling limit and a floor limit lol.

Anyhow, thanks for your continued support in my SB! I need to make a point to be less self-absorbed and help others more if I can haha.

[dierat]

Thanks for the comments, guys ;D And I'm glad the pitcher is well-liked. I haven't done anything on it recently, though.. I should, so I can move the pitcher off this desk and stop sheltering it like it's my only child :/

Anyway!

Mosh - thanks for stopping by ;D

Leo Ki- good pts. Use of gestural lines indicating full body form is something that I typically use in drawing from life and compositional sketches. The thing is, most of these pose sketches I'm doing, I don't really have an idea for what I'm sketching. I just start drawing and play with it until I like the direction it's going. When I said I think it helps to imagine the pose first, that was something I noted when I was drawing out a composition the other day. All the details weren't there or anything, but since I knew before-hand what I wanted my pose to look like, the form came out rather well, and less stiff. And yeah, I should do head/bust studies. But the thing is, I need to practice everything. I'll get there, just.. not quite yet ;D

Pagedown - are you talking about the brush used in the first couple of stages? I don't even pay attention to the brush's shape atm; I'm just looking at the wetness. I start off like a wet oily bristle because it works fast and lays down some thick blocks of color. Then I move onto a dry pallette knife and drier brushes for more control. And I don't know if the bottom *ellipse* is off, but the sides of it are. They need rounded; right now it looks like it's floating.

CP - That's debatable ;D At my university, we just assumed that most ppl are around 7 heads high. I've seen here on CA ppl say that 6-8 is "acceptable", 6 being a shorter person and 8 being a much taller person, leaving 7 as the average. I've also read that men tend to be 7-8 heads tall and girls 6.5-7.5. In general, my ladies come in around 6, which is not good. I don't mind a slightly large head, but in my case, it's an honest problem. And the paper thing is an outdated excuse, I'm afraid. I bought a new sketchbook that these figures fit rather nicely on (with room to spare), so porportional miscalculations are my own personal distortion. Hoping to change that.



Okay, more sketches. Ref for the face on the last one in this first bunch.



Kitty.



Some girl. Ref on the hair. I did the head first, then sketched in a body. I like the head, and the body, but because they were done separately they were totally mismatched. Note to self: no more of that.



Hookay, this next one I dislike muchly. I couldn't figure out what was porportionally wrong with it, so I got it in photoshop to mess with it a little. The left img was the original scan. I scaled it down horizontally, then scaled down the head to match. That gets her closer to 7 heads high, and I think the adjusted version looks a lot better. The legs are a bit thick though, and I think the knees could come up a notch. Any comments on this one would be great; I was really tearing my hair out over this one.



So, back to body sketches. Trying to stay aware of the height; hence the markings on the left.

[CouchPotato]

Heya dierat, that's a huge update you got there, good show!

I'm just going to give my 2 cents worth with regards to proportions heh. I read your reply to me, and saw the rest of your updates. When you said that you read somewhere that men are generally 7-8 heads and women, being shorter, is generally 6-7 heads, that's the part where I start to get puzzled. Maybe we can get this cleared up together lol, because there ARE women with 8 head figures. But when you set them beside men with 8 head figures, they will STILL be third of a head (thereabouts) shorter then the men. I think.

I'm thinking that's because proportions does not equate directly to height. Generally, women just tend to be smaller sized then men.

I looked through your stuff a bit more carefully, and I realised that your people's bodies are like, 3 heads from top of head to crotch. Again, I'm not too sure, but I think, even despite the fact that the people you're drawing is supposed to be 6 head figures, that change is too dramatic. From what I can tell, the size of the torso doesn't really change all that much despite dramatic changes in proportions. At most you'd get maybe 1/2 a head size difference between a 8 head person and a 9 head person. Most of the size change seems to be in the arms and legs. I think even with a 6 head figure, you should at least have a 3.5 head torso. With the 7 head drawing you said you have so much trouble with, I'm thinking the torso should be maybe 3.75 or so.

The one where you drew the head and the body separately looks fine, but I estimate that would have been about 4 head size length had the head been included.

Anyhow, I hope you don't mind, but I included a sort of paintover for the one you're unhappy with. There's a few issues with that as far as I can tell. First, no matter how you tweak and scale in photoshop, it's still not going to be 7 head. As you can see, I took a head measurement from your drawing, which is a little smaller than what you had, and the total height still turns out to be taller from head to heels. I measured the head length with a ruler and multiplied by 7 lol. The other issues mainly stems from perspective leading to anatomy problems, which is a bit more complicated than I know how to put into words haha. But one example is that at that angle, you'd see a bit of butt.

Also, I hope you don't mind if I included a crappy drawing I made as well for this lol. If you went through my earlier stuff in my SB, you'll noticed that I did lots and lots of stuff like the drawing I had here. I don't know if it'll work for you, but it certainly worked very well for me. The idea is to fix the image of the ideal proportions (for you) firmly into your mind. I did them in front, side and back view. Then I did them in perspective. Over and over, until I can more or less get them right without needing that division line thingy in the middle lol.

Hope all these helps! (Excuse my sloppy lines and even sloppier drawings lol, had to do all these under the radar )

Edit:
(You need to find good references I think. Probably the first few pages from Loomis figure drawing book will help lots.)

[dierat]

Yay, someone just threw me a lifesaver! ;D

Thanks CP! I think that comparison is great! Funny how, from the top of the head to the crotch, our 2 drawings are (not quite, but) almost the same. Then we get down to the legs and I'm totally off! Ha!

For finding good refs, well, right now I'm not using any. It doesn't make sense to me that I've drawn from observation so much and yet I'm such a noob once you take away my reference :/ I'm trying to work this stuff out on my own for now, but eventually I'll get some books for help. Though I was planning to get some Hogarth ;D

Back to sketching! Thanks dude!


Real quick, since I'm posting anyway, is an update on the pitcher. I worked out some of the inconsistencies in the form, like the circular shapes on the neck and belly of it, and the foot.

[DeJakhalz]

Hey there, I want to let you know Im really liking your different kind of styles. Im liking the self potrait because of his perfect harp lines but Im diggin the landscape kinda Tim Burton doodles too!

Keep iiiiit up

[dierat]

First off - a horse, for fun, from a photo




Okay, so, back to gestures. Trying to stay aware of proportions.






I've been painfully aware of how stiff my poses are and how usually the character doesn't seem to be balancing on 2 feet correctly. So I did some sketches from photo refs to practice natural-looking poses. But in drawing from these photos, I tried to build up the pose as if I were working normally rather than copy the lines for accuracy as I tend to do.




In doing those ref drawings I realized that I should be starting with a stick figure rather than shapes. In starting with a stick figure, you can decide your pose and work out most of the proportions quickly and save yourself a lot of hassle later. So, some more gestures, but starting with a line pose and building it up from there.




Okay, that's all for now. Next up - more figures, and heads!

[CouchPotato]

The proportions have greatly improved man. Now I think you need to work out how to make those more appealing. One thing you can try is to make the drawings less "blobby" (lol, sorry, I can't think of anyway to put it). Even though women are supposed to be curvaceous, there are still some parts that have hard masculine edges, most notably the joints. Ankles, knees, elbows, wrist bones, collar bones, etc. Try not to leave those out. I think the feet is a bit on the small side still. It's either that or it's too thick, thus making it seem smaller.

The last thing is the stuff I talked about the last time, perspective leading to anatomy problems. Again, one notable example is that you tend to leave out the gluteus maximus in certain angles where it should be visible. You still lack some finesses in getting your proportions in perspective just right, but unless you got someone looking over your shoulder and really picking your mistakes apart, the only way you can really improve in that is to really scrutinize each piece of drawing you do. Or, at least....that's what I can think of lol.

Ok, the horse. lol, Don't want to be funny and mean or what, but seriously, it looks like a giant dog with hooves and donkey ears lol. The horse head is a lot more tapered towards the mouth, from what I can remember of my own excercises. The jowls are not that huge and I recall that the bridge of the nose is a lot more obvious, and thus the muscles running up the mouth region looks really obvious and tough looking. Horses also got really obvious and heavy brow ridges. A handsome horse has got really deep chest muscles, which also indicates it's physical prowess. Because of that, what would be the deltoids in the human is also really obvious. The tummy should tuck in also if I recall correctly. Just think of it like a barrel chested man. In fact, you probably should think in terms of the human anatomy as you draw. If you really observe, there are a LOT of similiarities between the two.

[dierat]

Don't want to be funny and mean or what, but seriously, it looks like a giant dog with hooves and donkey ears lol.

Okay, I know it's a serious crit, but I seriously lmao when I read that ;D I'll keep that stuff in mind next time and try to pay more attention to the form. I think it's the 2nd time I drew a horse so, better luck next time I guess.

For the less "blobby" comment, it sounds like you just want to see more details and definition in the form, which I agree with. I'm trying to work out the proportion stuff without the details because, really, it sucks when you put all the details in just to realize that the whole form is off and was off from the beginning :/

For the gluteus maximus (lol, I always thought that'd make a great name for a roman emporer), I'm afraid I'm just not seeing what you're seeing. I feel that most of the time my figure is too frontal for that stuff to show. I agree that they can use a little more padding back there to show the hip rounding out to the butt, but if you want me to draw the fold of the butt, I just don't see that becoming visible until the hip starts to face the viewer and become parallel with the window plane. I'll just keep at it, I guess, and try to show a little more butt ;D


Couple of sketches.

[CouchPotato]

Yo. Sorry for the late reply. I've been in the process of moving, which leaves very little time for other things lol.

Anyhow. The thing about details and definition in the forms...I think we're not really on the same page. I don't mean that you have to draw out stuff like the pectorals, or show the deltoid line, navel, etc. etc. Things which are inside the shape. I'm talking about the shape itself. I'm attaching a page from Loomis figure drawing book. For instance, can you take a look at the profile view of the man? Look at his knees. If Loomis did not define the knees by curing in the thigh line, then jutting out the knee part, and then slanting in again, he wouldn't have been able to define the proper shape of the leg as a whole. It would have just been a sort of cone-ish object tapering towards the foot. No one will know it's a leg unless it's attached to some kind of body.

Which brings me to the next point. So far, all you have been drawing is women's body. I'm not sure where you intend to take yourself with your art, but at some point you probably would want to draw some male figures. You can sort of still get away with lots of curvy lines, and not very definite shapes for women if they're a bit on the plump side. But a man needs to look like a man, even if he's fat. Curvy lines or indistinct shapes aren't very masculine.

If you only want to be concerned with proportions at the moment, then it might be better for you to concentrate on stick figure manikins. Like what some animators do for gesture drawings. It's much faster to do then full figures.

For the leg and buttocks part. I did a sort of revolving leg drawing, to show you what I mean. I'm hoping it's clearer then my words so far lol. Also, I probably should have mentioned as well. The butt region is actually made of 2 muscles. The Gluteous Maximus, and the Gluteous Median. The Gluteous Median sits on top of the Maximus muscle. The effect is to make the whole butt region look a bit like a butterfly from the back (Look at the Loomis drawing). Even if you don't see the butt line at an angle (And I'm not actually talking about that. I'm more talking about the fact that the butt slants in at the bottom before the thigh begins), you will still see the line created by the skin as it folds over the median and maximus muscle. I did a paintover, it's awful because I can't control my wacom very well lol. Anyhow, I hope all these is making sense haha.

Cheer man!

[kovah]

Heeeeey, your proportions in your anatomy have improved so much since you started your sketchbook, though some of them are still a little stocky. I don't know if it will help or not but looking at and maybe drawing in an anime style might help you unstockiefy (i know its not even a word) yourself a little. Since as a general rule anime characters have elongated bodies making them look slimmer and more dainty. Also you can find some awesome poses and perspective shots with them.

Otherwise i think you are doing pretty well - though alot of your figures are currently floating in mid air might be easier and give you some practice to draw them in an environment be it on a chair in a room or fighting with aliens.

[Konstruktion]

Hey, post #39 is superb! And nice figures, perhaps the head is very big in some of them. Actually, I'd redommend Burne Hogarth: Drawing The Figure In Space or whatever it's called, great book which have helped me, and still is. Also www.posemaniacs.com is a great site. Perhaps try to start drawing the figure from different places, from the feet, from the waist, from the head. Just dont forget to think of it as a whole figure!

[dierat]

Been a while since I posted in here.. I've been taking a break from the gesture studies and trying to do some longer paintings.


CP - Thanks for your continued comments/suggestions. In response to some of the things you said.. I'm drawing ladies because I find the female body inspiring and enjoyable to draw, which I think is the case for lots of artists. I honestly don't think it's a big issue if I practice on women considering men and women share the same anatomy; men simply have slightly different porportions and some muscles are more prominent than on chicks. The important thing, I think, is to learn to build up a human form from gesture and anatomical knowledge, which is what I'm practicing. As for the details of the form - I'm working on it. I've accepted that since I haven't practiced anatomy/drawing the human form without a ref before, it's going to take me a long time to get any good at it. But that's just the way it goes.

Kovah - Yeah, they're really stiff. One thing I've been doing lately is drawing a thumbnail from imagination and then taking a photo for reference, which is cool because then I get to compare and see why my figure was looking wrong. I do like to look at anime, but maybe I should start doing studies from the artists that I like to understand their forms better.

Sarcophagus - Actually, I took your advice and bought Hogarth's Dynamic Figure Drawing, which I like so far. But I haven't been drawing from it so much as use it as an anatomy reference when drawing figures from imagination. But I don't like posemaniacs so much. I think it's a great site if for practicing the foreshortened figure though.


First I have some junk to post - random sketches, etc. Most of these are from a month or two ago, about the time that I stopped posting in here, but I'll post them anyway. The faces are from photos I found in the newspaper.

[dierat]

I actually did this about a month ago but never quite got around to finishing it until now. It was for the 3CH activity, and the topic was "A pagan queen beats a dinosaur beneath two moons", but I decided to cut out the dinosaur/dragon simply because it wasn't working. So now we just have some girl.. with a staff.. and two moons. Woo!

Here's the development of the painting, starting with the pen-on-notebook-paper thumbnail. After I drew the thumbnail and approved the composition, I took a reference photo to help me develop the pose.

[qabas12]

whoa, I love the way you make a mess of every thing, and then clean it up in the final render...... i think I need to try that style..... thanks dudette

[dierat]

gabas - Thanks dude, but I wouldn't really recommend that technique. It's a long and round-about process. I'm really trying to streamline my paintings so I spend less time putting down paint and more time on the final render. Thanks for stopping


a quick update

Final img for this one. From a photo, which you can see here. There's more that I could do in the hands, face, and hair, but I've decided to leave it as is. Painter X

[RandAlThor]

Hey Die, Major progress since sept, keep pumping out those figure studies, you are really beginning to unify the forms. Very cool last post, some minor issues still with the anatomy, but nothing another hour wouldn't fix. Keep posting dude :-)

[I_love_artwork]

Hey Die, Major progress since sept, keep pumping out those figure studies, you are really beginning to unify the forms. Very cool last post, some minor issues still with the anatomy, but nothing another hour wouldn't fix. Keep posting dude :-)

i agree with him

[dierat]

Rand and artwork - Thanks guys, I appreciate the encouragement

[dierat]

And that's where it's at so far.

[dierat]

For the CHOW thread The Squirrel Mage. I didn't get far in this before I realized my concept and composition weren't worth pursuing this img, but it was still fun

[dierat]

Here's another abandoned painting from October I think. The first two sketches are without ref, then I took a photo to help me with the form. The last img is just the girl a little bigger since I never worked the bg anyway.

[dierat]

Just finished this one. There's still a lot wrong that I can see, so I'd like to go back into it in a few months and straighten some things up. But for now this is as far as I'm going with it.



Also, this was done almost entirely in Photoshop CS2, which is a first for me.

Here's my ref: http://rldstock.deviantart.com/art/Emotive-77-68995942

[RandAlThor]

Hey Die, Cool last image, again there are a few anatomy issues as you've mentioned. but the biggest for me is that either the arms are two short or the head is too big, keep going with it mate ;-)

[Eux]

Nice a big step up towards your earlier image you really are starting to get a good feeling for lighting even though your skin tone feels really dark and I miss reflecte dlight on some places. However you have a problem with the arms in this last one especially the one furthest away the elbow feels way to low. and since the shoudklers are on virtually the same height the pose feels contorted sicne it seems we ar elookign at that opart of the body from straight ahead while the rest is made to look like sideways. It all always come back to that darned anatomy. Wish it didn't then Mayeb I could produce good pictures instead of just seeing the errors of others

[dierat]

Those are all good points, and I agree with them all. I don't know if the skin is too dark, but I definitely think it's too red. I think it needs more balance being less saturated in most areas but leave some areas with a warm blush. I also think her right hand needs some serious work as far as shadows and perspective and making it feel like it's connecting with the ground. But the arms/hands are definitely the major problem atm. Feel free to point out anything else, I appreciate it.