Novbert's Sketchbook or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love to Draw

[Novbert]

shading study - about 3 hours

[LtPlissken]

Now, I saw that lot of artists here work grayscale digitals instead of full colored. Is there an order to do black and whites before coloring to learn something? I did not tried myself to do grayscale paintings yet, am I missing something? I would appreciate if you could explain some things about this matter. BTW, great updates.

[JakehC]

Now, I saw that lot of artists here work grayscale digitals instead of full colored. Is there an order to do black and whites before coloring to learn something? I did not tried myself to do grayscale paintings yet, am I missing something? I would appreciate if you could explain some things about this matter. BTW, great updates.

This method of painting, often referred to as grisailles is a tool used to create a value scheme/composition in a piece. Having a good value scheme is arguably the most important part of presenting a piece of art that can pass as realism. Artist often choose to create a full grayscale painting before they begin to block in hue to avoid problems that can arise when trying to juggle the complexities of color picking.

In both digital and traditional media the grisailles is often glazed over with multiple layers of transparent color to create depth and luminosity as well as complexity of hue.

Although grisailles refers to a grayscale image, its a term that also includes most neutral monochromatic underpaintings/drawings used as a base for a finished piece.

Summary: the grisailles is for the purpose of studying value because value + light describes form.

[LtPlissken]

lolbbq, you explained this real detailed and real good. Thank you very much, I really appreciate it. I will start doing some grisailles right away.Cheers.

[Novbert]

LtPlissken: lolbbq is absolutely right. I totally aggree with him plus I think I should do tons of value studies and create compositions, cause if I'm not able to do it in greyscale, how could I do it in color? And on the other hand, as Ron Lemen wrote: color=value.

So here goes the first bunch of stuff folks. Tear 'em into pieces

[arestocrat]

omg, that brush looks awesome! Nice brushstrokes, too.
Really love these greyscale sketches, dunno what to crit here

[Lateman]

first picture of post #215 icks ass! great values and shading. go deeper into this workflow, seems to fit.

cheers

[Novbert]

arestocrat: Thanks, man. There's still too much to crit here imho
Lateman: that's my fav too.

Some new stuff, folks. Two more 30 mins and another half an hour work on that aformentioned piece:

[Novbert]

Some reffed stuff based on Marko Djurdevic drawings. almos 2 hours for the first one, almost 3 for the second one. Jeez, that was much harder than I tought.

[Novbert]

refless stuff now (still wip). Sketchbook pro and photoshop

[Novbert]

Update

[Novbert]

update again
Almost there

[Novbert]

finished

[Novbert]

daily sketch

[Novbert]

heads today
That blue one was less than an hour - and I really like how it turned out

[arestocrat]

love the mood and atmosphere in this on http://www.conceptart.org/forums/att...9&d=1260223714 The light looks awesome! But it seems like it lacks a bit bounced-light... I dunno.
From the last 2 faces I digg the red one! The blue ones has too big eyes, even for my alien taste

[Novbert]

arestocrat: thanks, man! Yeah I've maybe a bit overdone the shading on that guy.

anyway, here's some daily stuff. testing sketchin and coloring methods - and drawing random portait is just an ideal way to do this

[Novbert]

some referenced stuff today - mostly for studying cloth drawing.

[Euphemism]

I like the orange frog-head; reminds me of an old 90's cartoon I've rediscovered at the mo'.

[BludHund]

Hallo Novbert!

I only have one crit for you:

Absolutely Positively Do Some Longer Pieces

Your linework looks good, your brush technique looks good, your process is working well. However, if you want to move out of the rough sketch phase you're going to have to commit to putting multiple hours (even days) into a piece.

Not to say you have to do that every time, of course, a sketch is a sketch, but finished needs to be finished, not 'I stopped here because it started looking good'. Push push push the piece until you are totally sick of it, just to see where that takes you.

hmmm....I lied, one other crit: I think you're getting oversaturated colors and somewhat dull value range. Try doing some more fully-rendered monochrome studies.

[Novbert]

Euphemism: Glad you like it
BludHund: Most inspiring comment ever. Thank you very much, man.
I decided to start the longer drawing right now, so here is a little wip. Two hours so far.

[Novbert]

Some colors and shades now, detailwork started. Another 2 hours of work.
I think I'm really slow

[Novbert]

still trying to improve my linedrawing process. Here's another one:

[Novbert]

some new stuff
The head on the right is reffed

[Novbert]

some exaggerations, photo study, costume-concepts

[BludHund]

Love the hair studies, great sense of form. One thing though, even though its common in anime, try not to let the hair look too much like play-dough. Think ribbons, not bananas, when applying the highlights to each lock. So the curve of the form goes almost strictly with the lock, rather than across it.

Work some on proportion and figure construction. Your people are starting to get rather blobby and lacking in structure. Think volume.

quote: "Another 2 hours of work. I think I'm really slow"

First you get good, then you get fast. Just keep up a continuous tempo of effort...its amazing how much more you can get done when you eliminate distractions and second-guessing. Also try to avoid getting bogged down by overly rigid or nit-picky phases (I don't think that's much a of a problem for you, but it is for me) try to employ methods that don't involve too much back-tracking or reworking. That means get the most basic elements right from the start, correct mistakes before investing tons of time, always work general to specific. Never get too tight too early (now there's a problem I should work on).

Keep up the good work man. More more more.

[Novbert]

Bludhund: Thanks for stopping by again.
Yeah, those hair studies look like play-doh, but imho it's only because I used such a soft shading - some harder highlights would definitely make them more hair-like.
Also thank for the advice on workflow, I'm workin on it, man

Here's the first character from my personal project (wip)

[LtPlissken]

Yo neighbor! What's up? An update would be nice now.
We did not forget about you

[Novbert]

Hi, man, thanks for stopping by. I've been having a one month long artistic block but now I'm back, and doing ChoW sketches all the time.
Here are the recent ones:

[LtPlissken]

Great to see you back!
Nice new ones.
What does a "Chow sketch" mean's?