Piss and Vinegar-{CKL}

[NickyBeats]

great updates man! love those anatomy sketches!!

[{CKL}]

NickyBeats- Thanks! I aim to please.

Doing some portrait studies.
Source material from the Faces of Meth series.

[{CKL}]

Tried to take a few saves to show process. If any of you have some tips or pointers feel free to drop them.

Basically, color block in, trying to be as accurate as possible, followed by a few detail passes.

20 minutes.

[{CKL}]

Chug chug chug. Vintage Nudie.

[{CKL}]

Note to self: Drag ass back into figure drawing sessions.

[{CKL}]

So, I finally discovered....that if you place the tablet directly in front of the screen....it's easier to control. WTF have I been doing all this time.


Anyways. A quick sketch for the Zelda competition at CGHUB.

Ganon in the background, Link coming along eventually.

[ThomasM]

nice posts man. you are working hard so here are a few crits:

fisrtly: i'd start by blocking in colours with the hard round brush. this is a default ps brush, but is actually one of the better brushes out there. it gives solidity abd forces you to notice mistakes. because it is so bold, if you put the wrong value/colour in it wil be immediately obvious. This helps you notice your mistakes and correct them, increasing how fast you learn.

Secondly, get rid of some of that texture. texture is a bit of a device that everyone gets draw into using when learning to digital paint because it is so easy with certain brushes. Unfortunately, it also reduces the form and covers mistakes in value/colour which would have otherwise been noticed.

Thats all for now, but I hope that helps. Keep on working hard!

[{CKL}]

ThomasM- Thanks for the awesome feedback! I've tried to incorporate both of your bits of advice as I moved in on this piece.

Still need to figure out how Link fits into all this. Zelda on the right, btw.

[{CKL}]

I think I finally got Link incorporated, now for the work.

[{CKL}]

Update on the Zelda piece. I still have loads of work to do, but it's coming along.

[{CKL}]

Getting there, slowly but surely.

[hala]

Really digging the way you're handling the line work in the zelda piece, maybe try to bring it into the rendering a bit more---I think it will add an interesting effect.
Hope all has been well CK, it's been a while!

[towy]

nice work CKlamb, continue

[{CKL}]

Hala- Good to see you're still alive and kicking! I'll have to hit up you sketchbook in a minute.

towy- thanks and I will


Doing a little cleanup. Still have a few more things I want to incorporate into the piece.

[Dope Fiend]

The fluidity of the piece looks fantastic, but something about the colors make it seem a little, excuse my lack of words, but..dull?

My only suggestion might be to play around with some more saturated hues, or varied colors, liven it up a little bit, but take my suggestion with a grain of salt. thanks for showing the progress!

cheers

[{CKL}]

Dope Fiend- Definitely feel ya on the dull thing, I've started in on some more contrast and variation in hue. Thanks for keeping an eye out for me!

Last update for at least a day or two.

[{CKL}]

I hate my scanner, it kills everything.

[Sprogis7]

there is some nice figure work here, keep it up

[{CKL}]

For some reason, this adjustment on the face really works for me. I'm not quite sure what I'm chasing stylistically but I think it's moving in a positive direction. Anyways. I need to finish up that Zelda piece. I'm way to easily distracted.

@Sprogis7- Thanks, I'm trying to keep it going.

[{CKL}]

Quick master study from Caravaggio and an Alternate Pose for the Zelda Piece, big thanks to Venger for the suggestion.

[{CKL}]

Computer has been down for the past few days.
Back now.
In the immortal words of Flo Rida,
"Time to make that booty go pop."
or something.

[{CKL}]

It's odd that we as artists set up these sketchbooks, putting out for display our most intimate struggles and triumphs, and you the viewer spend your time, an ever dwindling resource, digging through these fragments of experience. Yet, we know little to nothing about each other outside of this context.

While our work says so much about us as individuals, ultimately we are strangers meeting in a dark alleyway exchanging goods.

I think I would like to step out of the dark a bit, at least as far as I can. Hopefully, you'll understand these struggles a bit more and enjoy the time you share here with me.

First, by way of re-introduction ( back on page one I did a brief intro), my name is Corey Lamb. I am 28 years old and am currently teaching a Digital Art Class at the very high school I graduated from ten years ago. It's been quite the odyssey getting back to my home town. I am married to my high school sweetheart, Amanda, and will have been together for 11 years this November, married for the past 5. We have a 3 year old son named Harper Alonzo Lamb, and, come October, we're expecting another little one.

I graduated from a small state university, with a degree in Painting back in 2006. After I graduated, I kind of sat on my hands for a good three years. A lot of it had to do with a traumatic event that was in large part self-inflicted. I really couldn't touch paint and do personal work because of the mental block associated with it. However, I began to pick up illustration and digital art as an alternative outlet about a year and a half ago. I'll readily admit, I'm not the greatest of illustrators, but I think the work has helped me heal and move on in a lot of ways. That's why there is such a discrepancy in the work from the first post and everything that followed. So, I'm finally back at the easel and ready to move forward. Unfortunately, the hand skills are a bit rusty. I've started to do life and reference studies to shake the dirt off, but it'll take time.

Anyways, I've started my first serious body of work since I graduated from college. The series is entitled Death Grip . It's early on, but I thought I would try to share my progress with you all. I apologize for my horrible phone pics that follow. Eventually, I'll get a real camera.

Thanks for taking your time to share in my experience.

The first five paintings are a series of portraits. Just starting to lay in with the paint on Amanda's portrait and the skull is somewhere near completion. Still not quite sure about the amount of negative space in the work. I might need to redo the scale.

[{CKL}]

I think, one of the hardest things as a painter is to stay on course during the process. There are so many moments where you see a whole new path open up during a painting session, the only thing you have to do is abandon your current course and veer off. Unfortunately, if you always veer off, you never end up where you wanted to go. You never fully realize an idea from beginning to end. That has been one of my greatest struggles, and is definitely one of the reasons I have been such a weak finisher. But, I'm pushing past that now. Going to get this shit done.

Current status on Amanda, need to fix some drawing errors on the chin, neck, and outlying areas. Once those are done I'll lay in a dead layer to take off a lot of that warmth, then into the meat of it.

[{CKL}]

Soooo, after several redraws, I've finally finished up this little master study from Sargent.

I think I knocked some rust off with this one. I have had a terrible time trying to get back into the habit of measuring for accuracy. For some reason, I still think I can eyeball it like I use to in college, when I was doing 20 hours of life drawing a week. Ugh. It felt good when the shapes started to snap into place after much grief and erasing. Still not quite 100 percent on, but I'm slowing getting these hands back in gear.


I'm hoping Amanda will sit for me some this weekend. I really need to push her portrait beyond the genericism it has right now, which will require some actual face time.

Also, having a little distance from that Zelda piece, I want to do a complete rework. I like some of the elements individually, just not as a whole.

Life Lesson: MEASURE THE FIRST TIME AND IT'LL BE THE LAST TIME!!!

[JakehC]

that master study is really nice. i sense a bit of ambiguity in the hands. and around the neck area.

maybe try the same master study a second time!

Im excited to see future progress on the zelda piece.

[Vay]

Really great stuff. I really love the rendering of the skull. That was what drew me to this post. I also love the white charcoal renderings as well.

[Andrew Sonea]

I'm excited to see where this big project is leading. You seem to have a good handling of oils, and I think are off to a great start.

I do hate to say it, but I personally feel the painting of your wife was much stronger in the first post than the latest update. We'll see where it goes from here.

[{CKL}]

Aryeh- Ahhh, your not supposed to notice the lack of effort on the hands!!! Yeah, I didn't push the hands as far as the rest of the study. Probably only spent about five minutes on them. Good eye.

Vay- Hey, thanks for dropping by man. I definitely need to get back into the charcoal and chalk stuff.

Andrew Sonea- I 100% agree. That first sessions of slapping down paint has so much energy and potential. But, I had a specific goal in mind, so some of that snap and pop from the beginning has to be funneled in a specific direction. Hopefully, it'll come back around as I work on it.

This is a simple layer to deaden the color a bit, and to better solidify the overall lighting.

[PeteJ]

your paintings look great, I would like to see some finish ones soon.

[Velocity Kendall]

hella fresh stuff 5*