Black Spot's Sketches

[Black Spot]

My SB. Any comments are welcomed.




Moved what was here to next post.

[TLL]

Looks nice. I really like the use of the colour in this one.

Keep posting.

[Black Spot]

Thanks. I’ve had a really long break from drawing and painting and am just getting back into the groove, so to speak. Recently, for my animation, I’ve been drawing an awful lot from photographs using vectors on the computer. Not drawing from real life in anger for about twenty years, I thought I’d apply the same principals I was using for the photo drawing to my hand; at least I can sit it fairly close to the monitor. All done with transparent vectors.



Put Flatford Mill here.

[Black Spot]

It has been 27 years since I did life drawing. Yesterday I went to a class. Boy, am I rusty.

First there were 30 second poses. What the heck? I was all kind of Eek! Then draw, draw, draw.



Then 1 minute poses.



We had 5 minute poses before a couple of 15 minutes.



Finally, there was a 30 minute pose, but I did it in charcoal and chalk, and don’t fancy cleaning my scanner. There was another one, but I had to leave to get across town back home to eat and sleep.

Can’t wait until the next one, and I’m taking my son.

Here's what I've been doodling at work today.

[luverly_marie]

Nice on the vector hand. I would suggest the next time you try this technique, to make the patches of color smaller and the opacity lower. Eventually, you'll get a very nice realistic flesh tones on the hand. Of course it'll involve a lot more layers, but the outcome is worth it.

For your 30 second poses, I'd try adding more defining lines. Even if it's incorrect you still have the lines that'll represent the movement and rhythm.

Good overall, can't wait to see more progress.

[Black Spot]

I know. I’ve only been using the tablet for a short while and trying to get to grips with it. Big learning curve what with all the brushes I haven’t tried yet etc on DrawPlus 8. Thanks for encouragement – I’ll be working hard and posting what I can.

[Black Spot]

These are some of my life drawing sketches from week 3 (there wasn’t much improvement in week 2). The model for the first half was dressed in a burlesque fashion. I decided I needed to loosen up so started scribbling with biro.

[Black Spot]

Here's this week's batch. I seem to have focused on the knees a bit. About 20 minutes each.

[TASmith]

Wow, just looking in, you've got a lot of potential! I like the energy in your figure drawings, and the proportions are coming around. That first pastel may be a bit stiff, but it's got a great sense of light. Do a ton more pastels, and post them.

[Zeppelin]

i really like the scribble style you have with the figure drawings, and would love to see some more paintings. keep up the work and you'll catch up on that lost time soon enough!

[Black Spot]

Thanks for the comments. I’m finding ballpoint a great way to concentrate and loosen up. This being week 5 of life classes and I’m just beginning to get to grips with the 30 second poses and begin to enjoy them; drawing smaller seems to help. This week's efforts.




Not to sure about the minute ones. Reasonable body shape on the third figure, but the arms went a bit awry.




5 minutes are nothing to write home about. Tightened up a bit.



The 10&15 minutes are not too deadly -starting to bring the background in to lend a hand with form.




20 minutes. The first one didn’t quite get the fore-shortening of her leg right, and the second – I totally messed up her face, which is a shame as she’s pretty and has great cheekbones.




30 minutes – I term that loosely, because someone split a drink above and it dripped all over my son’s work. The one comment of, “Quick grab a glass for free beer” cracked a few smiles in the class. It’s only now I notice that too many of the strokes are in the same direction. That thing under her breast is a hand.

[Black Spot]

Here's a really old one showing how far I've got to go to get back to where I was before I move forward. Flesh - I want to draw flesh.

[dark eagle]

Wow, you really do a lot more than me considering that I have much more time on my hands than most people. There are not many crits i can give yet espeically after seeing that last painting. But I think this little website will be great for you and anyone else willing to try

www.posemaniacs.com
www.posemaniacs.com/pose/thirtysecond
www.posemaniacs.com/pose/randomviewer

Great work. Love to see more

[Black Spot]

Thanks. I already have posemaniacs bookmarked but never got round to sketching from there, maybe I should.

Here’s a load I’ve done from reference. I’m doing an animation and the backgrounds are for it. The people are part of the background in that they are not important to the main animation. I seem to have saved them all in different sizes.

Run down street. The signs are different from the ref to make it more seedy.



A few famous people to mingle with the hoi-polloi.







Changing the clothing makes a difference.



City Hall. I have this as my desktop background for some unknown reason.



Libertys. With a few of the people I’ve made.



A friend who wanted to be blonder than I made her.



Millennium Bridge. Simple background.

[Gail_Blitzy]

I really like the scribbly life drawings - I might try that techniqure myself!
Thanks for the comment on my stechbook

[dark eagle]

The second drawing in those famous people looks like boris johnson, is it?

[Black Spot]

It was a pleasure Gail.

Yes, it is Boris pyrokid.

Here are a few of the objects I've been making for my animation. The bus doors actually open.



Here's a car that a friend on another forum was selling - he was going to miss it, so I drew it for him.



And here's him driving away in it.

[Jansi]

.Boris?! :-) Nice pictures!

[dark eagle]

Wow the cars look so beatiful and simple, love the phantom. How did you do those?

(i am now dark eagle-was pyrokid)

[Slechtvalk]

Hay there Black spot;

your sketches are pretty good.
I really like how you handled this one:
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/att...1&d=1214943878

You might have already heard this but;
Save contour for last. Draw in your big volumes first (torso) and work your way to the smaller ones. And while your drawing the volume/space they take up look to the space they dont to check.

Dont be afraid to sketch in the faces. Try not to worry about making the features look perfect, focus more on putting them in the right spot and in perspective.

Those digitals are lookin pretty neat too;

[Black Spot]

Thanks dark eagle. It’s really tracing in my way. I used Serif DrawPlus8 and they’re all vector based, but I could have done in 4, the free version. I work from the back to the front getting the main shapes in and then with loads of transparencies on top. Most of the reference pictures I’m using are tiny about 250 by 100 pixels, so there’s loads of leeway in rendition. The great thing with using a base colour to start with, is that I can change the entire colour in one click.

Thanks for the critique Slechvalk. You’re totally right, which is why I’m trying to incorporate some of the background to show the contours. It’s so hard trying to pick up from where I left off in technique. I used to sketch portraits, but it was always the second version that was the best. It was like getting the bad stuff out on the first shot and clearing my vision for the next take. I'll upload this weeks life drawing later. In the meantime...

Here’s some really old stuff

This was in '79. Quick sketch in pastels



Here's two of the same view. First was the detailed one and then I concentrated on the important lines circa '80





This is a tiny watercolour I did ('80). Might try to do some more if I get my courage up.



The still life shows what I should be working on. I'm going to be drawing onions next week to practice pastels.

[bouroune]

yo Black spot,
the last post is awesome, great watercolor, my favourites peaces of all are your pastels, good stuff, keep on posting

[Black Spot]

Cheers bouroune. My technique with pastels is very rusty, but I keep working at it.

On to Monday’s life classes. We arrived a bit late so my son had to sit the other side of the room. Never known it so crowded. It was a bit of a rush to unpack everything to get started and I developed a horrible cough during the first half.

Missed the 30 second poses, but the first 1 minute one could be classed as such. Times are scribbled on the page. The 20 minute one is the same pose. Didn’t like what I’d done, so started again. Totally overworked the pastels (30 minutes), the paper was beginning to complain. Left early as my son was tired.

[dark eagle]

Nice, I like watercolours. But I see hard edges, not as a result of brushwork I presume. Always keep the surface your using wet otherwise the watercolors will dry up and assume a hard edge which is kinda off-putting unless its in city scapes(which is entirely different). You can do that in two ways. A spray bottle which gives a nice mist rather than a stream or droplet of water, because the paint will be altered in some way then, and you can try to do a wash with a fan brush or a flat brush.

I have to say one thing. Excelence in figure drawing and painting both come in one similar way. You've found it for figure drawing(practise), and painting is similar. Try to see how different paints over eachother change the mood of an image and so on before you make a painting.

I have one thing that you can do which will hopefully produce a exempelery painting+give you some usefull help along the way. Take a photo of a model(dont know if its allowed where you are but if not the internets the second best thing) make sure you make a great drawing of it which resembles it to a point which you think is good enough to take on into a painting then look at the shadows, colours and highlights in the picture then practise with how your going to acheive a resemblence to them make them on a seperete page/the back side of your canvas to know what the outcome will be(remeber to take notes other wise you'll forget) remember the mind-set here is better safe than sorry. So before you lay a paint on the final canvas you should already know what to do therefore it should help you greatly and give everybody that uses it a crouch to go on.

And another thing, this is going to make me sound horrible-I'm not trying to be!! I think to acheive the best results you should just for this occasion not try the sribbly method because we need contour here. And try to take as many measurements as you go through to keep a high standard of likliness.

Be warned this requires much patience so try not to use a "stiff" modle-you'll die of boredom. And it will take days-i know it took me days to do a good drawing and no I didn't get into the second stage, hope you do.

Hope it helps. Yours dark eagle can we see it please+if the drawing is going against you try tracing-then just going ahead with painting-the goal here is to gain knowledge and expereince, not to make a painting which is just like KABOOM which goes against what i said but if you get what I mean.

[Black Spot]

Yesterday’s life class. Not bothering to upload the short ones. This week I thought I’d try to concentrate on a smaller area and draw it more detail. If I had more time, more of the model would have been drawn, but I’m still a bit slow.

[Black Spot]

I’m not too sure about my sketches this week. I really should do more than just once a week. Sometimes you’ve got to go backwards before forwards – sigh!

1, 10, 15, 20x2, & 30 minutes.

[risingfromashes]

Love the looser pencil work in post #25...
#15...the sketch below it and #20...great feeling

[dierat]

Hi Black Spot, I saw your girlie thread on critique and thought I'd come take a look at your sketchbook I know where you're coming from, getting back into drawing after a break. Just keep at it and try to do your best; you'll see the difference in time when you look back at these drawings later.

For lifedrawing gestures, yeah it takes a little while to get into the feel of it. My advice to you is this: I would try putting away the pen and pencils and use a large, thick utensil on a large open sketchbook. The way I always did lifedrawing, and ofc it's just one way but maybe it would work for you too, was with vine charcoal on an 18"x24" sketchpad. I like vine charcoal or willow charcoal because it's very soft and goes down fast, and you just smudge it out if you want to erase. Use your whole arm and try to capture the gesture of the pose, don't focus on the outline but the structural elements of the body.

And the other thing I wanted to say is your sense of color looks a little confused atm. In particular I'm looking at the last img in post #23 when I say this. I think it would be best for you to focus on just using a few colors (like 3 maybe) for practice and experimentation. Try to focus on basic color theory at first. For instance, if you have an orange-yellow skin tone for the base color, use blue and purple for your shadows. Only use green in the coolest areas.

Good luck and hope that helps!

[Black Spot]

Cheers risingfromashes. Not being so precious about my work is great for giving it a bit of life.

Thanks dierat for the advice. I can only do life drawing once a week and barely 3 hours then due to train to catch. We don’t have easels, so I can’t stand back. I know exactly what you mean about big strokes – I did use to do them all that time ago. I’m going to rearrange my house soon, so I might have more room to practise in a bit of space.

The colour on #23 is bad, I know. I’m not going to do any more pastels for life drawing until I’ve rediscovered my colouring skills. Vegetables will be my best friends in the next few weeks if the family leave me alone. Not even going to work on WIP until this sorted, as I keep messing the whole thing up.

Thanks for the advice, much appreciated.

[Black Spot]

At last we had a male model this week. Really enjoyed myself. The head’s a bit small on the last one, but I did it in a minute and it’s quite a good likeness.