From the belly of Trolls.......

[Atastrophea]

First! It appeared and was rarely updated!
Then!! it was swallowed by trolls and thought lost forever!!
And NOW!!!, rescued by Jason and for your viewing pleasure......

My Sketchbook

Most recently I have been doodling------->



~^-^~

[Atastrophea]

First a piece of old work to measure my progress against (hopefully!)



and so...


Out walking the dogs today and two things made me laugh so I tried to draw them quickly.



Zuess decided to rub his itchy nose/head against Sashki's head much to her shock! (she is usually scared of him caus he's a giant to her)



and then later, on the field, Sashki started limping **Oh no poor sash is hurt!! yikes huge vets bill looming**



She'd only managed to get half a walnut shell stuck to her paw!? dont ask me how its a mystery....

all ConstructiveCrit's encouraged and welcomed with open arms

m^-^m




My first failed COW attempt *must try harder*

[BANNED_For_POOPY_PANTS]

Hey Atastrophea Thanks for checking out my SB!

Great doggy sketches. The one with Zuess and Sashki is wonderful. You totally captured that moment.

On to your COW submission..

Since I'm in the same boat , I think I know what we both need to work on to make the polls:

1. Character definition -- What makes your creature different from every other creature in the universe, and more importantly, in the next round of COW. Anatomy, texture (fur, scales, etc), color.. all of these aspects should be clearly portrayed. If a specific element eludes you, you can always check the net for a refference picture.

2. Artistic quality -- This is probably our biggest issue . Looking at your entry, I can sense a fantastic idea/concept but it's kind of vague. We should both try spending that extra hour or two (or more) refining the image, defining important elements, re-checking anatomy/perspective/form/value/color. Put in a tad more elbow grease, so to speak. It's worth it.

3. Sloppiness -- Again; focus on believable anatomy, perspective. Dirty, scribbly lines can (and should) always be tweaked.

You definately have potential, natural talent and a good eye already. Now it's time to start filling your sketchbook !

Peace, love and good happiness stuff,
JonathanS

P.S. -- How do you work? Old school or digital? Tablet? Do you have a scanner?

[Atastrophea]

Quick, early WIP for the latest COW - Glacier Terror.....



The idea is an ambush predator that suspends itself by its tail from the roof of glacial caves disguised as a bunch of icicles, and then drops onto its prey, spearing them with its spiky limbs/carapace and sucking their blood through a specially modified proboscis.

[Atastrophea]

Aargh, overwhelmed by final year uni work so may be a while until I have time to update this! I will be back though......

[Atastrophea]

Me + impending deadline = distracting self with animal scribbles *Clever* lol

as suggested by the BFG himself......... Night Monkey, Pygmy Marmoset, Echidna (long nosed as type not specified!) Silky anteater and Potoo..... (maybe others to follow later....)











(still dont have scanner software so having to use digital camera for now which is a bit crap so sorry :-p)

m^-^m

[daveneale]

Looks to me like a common potoo....they look even funnier with their huge mouths wide open...Looking forward to more fun animal doodles

[Atastrophea]

Quick update, nothing that Im pleased with or that is very exciting but I hope if I keep at it I might eventually get somewhere the rabbity things are just brainstorms for a small sculpt for a friends easter pressie (its an ,ahem, *adult* in joke between us) and card. The ottery beast is in need of foot attention as they are so so wrong but It was from swiming the other day and pretending to be an otter



Think I need to work on my values a lot, I hate that everything I draw ends up long so ghostly, smudgy and woolified >:-/ Think I need to learn how to not be so messy with pencils. tips/advice anyone?

[Clochette]

Nice sketches!
Your avatar really intrigues me! Do you make some paper sculptures? I'd like to see more!

[iamgale]

nice work. ^^ i really can't say much because I don't do much animals. hehe but you have a nice start, i like the bird in the right side of the page. ^^ vey cute.

[TASmith]

these are great! The bird with the big eyes is the best.

[RandAlThor]

Nice gesturing in the otter, you should give his feet some attention and revisit him ;-)

[daveneale]

nice otter indeedy, feet are one of my big nightmares right now-so I sympathize As far as pencils go you might want to try drawing real light (or even do the blue pencil thing) at 1st and then pay attention to shadows. Oh and that lil guy in the bottom left has a wiered endearing quality

[Atastrophea]

Sound COW idea



Loloo-Lolup - Descended from a race of gliding shrews it is an amphibious creature that powers along underwater looking for food in the form of insects (water boatmen, caddis fly larvae etc.) like its shrew ancestors it has to eat constantly due to its high metabolic rate.

The sound you can hear being picked up by our high tech underwater microphone is produced by the Lolup's vestigial glide flaps vibrating in the current as it races around the streambed. This sound is thought to act as an alert, warning other Lolups not to infringe the resident creatures territory.

[Dan Valkar]

well, it seems that u r into creature design ..hehe....im not a good at it but i think i could give u some tips..first, its very useful to look the real animals..behavior and anatomy, skin, colours, textures...etc....so ur creatures will look more realistic and believeable...maybe try to mix animals anatomy, to create a new one..always fun to do..then u can create more from ur head..well hope this help....cheers

[Atastrophea]

random doodles...





Thanks to everyone who has looked at my work and given me advice so far I've tried to give individual replies back in your sketchbooks too but I'm a bit preoccupied with uni stuff most of the time until June!

[daveneale]

I like the painterlyness of the Loloo-Lolup...do I spy some 3rdage in there too it looks like quite a windy dark day up there. One little thing I'd say about your shading is that you using straight lines to define shadows, where if you followed the form, you'd probably find the 3 dimentionality coming over a bit more. It can be a little tricky to work out the exact curvature you should be going for-but give it a go Oh and huarah for flying anteater/tamanduas

[Smiling Machine]

Just looked thorughly through this sketbook and weel there isn't much to say, no offence but there aren't alot of drawing. THe sketches of the dogs and otters and BFG animals are great so your natural ability is top class really and the bird with the big eye is class and the COW shrew is really good, but what point are you trying to get to by drawing, that's one thing I don't see in most peoples sketchbooks so I find it hard to comment. Anyway, I don't know if that's of any help but sure I said something anyway. Please look at my sketchbook and comment.

[Atastrophea]

My stylized challenge entry. I was quite pleased with the sketch, not happy with the painting - hadn't got time to do it well so was pretty rushed





Oh well maybe sometime after uni I can go back and have another go at colouring it in!

~^-^~

oh. P.S Made it into the voting for COW! and someone even gave me a vote!!! I was so amazed I nearly fell off my chair and had to keep going back to check it wasn't a mistake - lol

[BANNED_For_POOPY_PANTS]

Atastrophea,

WOW. That's your best sketch yet!

[Atastrophea]

Updatey Updatey......

FINALLY!

ok I graduated Woop Woop I can now put BA(Hons) after my name and everything (if I was feeling like being pretentious anywho... lmao.)

if you're curious as to what I've been doing for the last year when I should have been updating this sketchbook check out the Tech Arts Portfolio Link in my sig )

so now I will go back to trying to improve the drawing...... a few quick scribbles to get me started:







Voila, about a million miles to go but at least I'm on the road, right? (or at least stumbling through the bushes on my way towards hopefully finding the road someday )

~^-^~

[Atastrophea]

Ok, have not updated for ages, *slaps wrist* wil be trying harder to update regularly from now.

Some observational sketches of form/lighting:




An idea for a small sculpey sculpt I'm working on:


ideas for a more stylised 'dragon sculpt' to be made in clay and cast in ciment fondu (2nd ones far wing needs fixing):


A pendant I made at a short jewellery making workshop, Silver, slightly larger than life size:


Some sketches from life:


and from head (at office job where I shouldnt be drawing so quick and serruptitious ):


and from photo reference (bird, hairy butterfly - at work again!) and life (giraffe anatomy and misc. eyes):


And thats it for today... watch this space for more, I've hopefully got my life more on track to work on improving like I want to now thanks to Dave for support and mentoring recently

~^-^~

[Atastrophea]

Ok I have more sketchbook bits and bobs but they are at home and I'm at work so will scan them in when I get some downtime! just finished my entry for the 4 seasons glory COW which isn't the most amazing thing ever in the grand scheme of things but is a bit of an improvement for me I think, I ran out of time on them and need to sort the contrast in them more as they're still a bit flat but I think I made progress between spring and winter...

heres spring:


the others arte in the COW voting thread, will add them here when I get a spare minute

~^-^~

[Atastrophea]

Super stylised challenge -troll





ran out of time for colouring this one, its pretty crap, I think I need to figure out how to make pressure sensitive brushes as that was bugging me when I was using photoshop for this (I SHOULD have stopped to figure it out BEFORE doing this but I was being impetuous :p)

~^-^~

[Atastrophea]

This years Xmas & Birthday Thank you notes
(I am sketching but forgetting to update, which I think is better than updating but not sketching lol, or not updating because of no sketching )

Thanx Cat (for grandparents):


Thank your lucky stripes (for brother):


Thanktopus (for aunt):


They are all watercolour on watercolour postcard (4x6") Scans have picked up the colour/texture a bit wierdly, and I thought the black ink was waterproof and it wasnt-oops so theyve gone a bit grey. I dont like the person but I quite like the presents, especially stripey

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[hunchback]

cool work here.
i like the octupus in your last post.
update so we can see more please

[Formal]

cool work ! and keep on the good work as i can see and post more so we can SEE more !! (and i dropped by your portfolio and it,s really col what you've done! these sculptures and all !)

[gutss]

I love your spring monster! the pencilling looks really nice, and you seem to have a pretty good imagination when it comes to creating monsters. practice everything (colours values, anatomy, MOORE!), push yourself and have fun doing it I think you can

good luck!

[dierat]

Hey Atas, nice start to your sketchbook ^^ I really like spring in post #23; the form is very elegant and so interesting as well.

For suggestions, I think it would be very beneficial to you to take some time for color studies. Do a quick thumbnail of some random object with a cast shadow (like a sphere), add some shading to it (nothing fancy), then pop it into photoshop and do some variations in the color. Pay special attention to shadows and highlights and how you can use different colors in the background to pop the foreground, etc. Think about analogous and complementary colors and how they affect the contrast in the img. If you don't what those are, look them up. It can also be very educational to take a look at some of your favorite paintings and photographs (historical or modern art), take them into photoshop, and use the color picker around various areas to see what colors they were using and think about how they affect the img.

Great work so far, keep posting ^^

[Atastrophea]

Thanks Dierat that is realy good advice, I've been trying to do some colour recently because its not something I've really looked at before (just been "colouring stuff in" not using colour to add to /enhance a piece if you know what I mean?)

Sometimes it seems like I need 10 brains to focus on all the different areas there are to understand! lol Line brain, form brain, tone brain, texture brain, colour brain, composition brain, content brain etc......

but I shall continue to try

This weeks COW:



~^_^~