Anibawl's Sketchbook

[anibawl]

Hi, I'm barely making my sketchbook here on CA.

Hope you guys are very critical... I need all forms of help. Right now I'm just going to try and do a quick picture on the Wacom at work everyday for ... however long I can.


This one I made yesterday.

8/08/08
~3 hours



It took me so long because I was barely trying to learn to use the wacom and how to paint and all that good stuff.


8/09/08
~25 minutes



Picture just to practice some stuff... didn't have much time to do anything to this plus I kept having trouble because of the very large area's of skin to paint. I guess I just need to keep reading the photoshop forums

[anibawl]

Lime picture for Vegetable/Fruit painting under Digital Painting Thread

8/10/08
~1:30






I think I might have played with it too much... or maybe not enough. What should be done to it ? or... what should have NOT be done to it?

EDIT: darkened lime a bit

[Equality72521]

the lime looks real good, im in the same boat as you, i recently got a tablet and im figuring how to work with it as well.

one small thing on the lime is how the edges are dealt with, light edges are hard while shadow edges are soft, maybe a bit of blur where the shadows and around the right edges. just what i see, though

[anibawl]

Yeah I see what you're saying. I went back to darken the whole thing up a bit but I don't think that helped with that any. I'll start another fruit object soon to try to work out the kinks

[Brashen]

Hey anibawl,

Glad to see you've taken the advice and that you're continuing to post. As for your problem with painting skin it's pretty much straightforward. I suggest you take a couple of photographs and try to paint those first. Don't worry about colours for now, just stick to the actual techniques. You can do them in grey scale.

Simple way to start up:

1: Block in the paints first
2: Start adding layers of paint gradually to build up features
3: Blend
4: Repeat steps 2 and 3 until satisfied
5: Add Detail

I've taken the sketch of the face you've posted just to sow you some simple steps. Hope this clarifies things a bit. Obviously you can take this much further with the actual photo.

[anibawl]

aw man that's freakin perfect advice


Only thing is:... I'm not entirely certain what blending actually MEANS. I've looked for it in the Digital Painting 1 and 2 by Bumskee... but I don't really know what it means.

For the lime thing I just did a lot of stippling and turned my Opacity on the brushes very low. Is there a more simple way to do that? Or am I completely off track.

[Brashen]

Hey Anibawl,

Here a few techniques in blending which will help you to achieve smooth gradients in your painting. note that studying real life objects and practicing with them is the quickest way to get better at this. You need to expand your visual vocabulary to be able to mimic real life shadows and gradients.

Techniques:

1- Smudging: Smudging requires you to use the smudge brush located in both Photoshop and or Painter. Tho in Painter it is called the blending tool and is much more versatile than what you have in Photoshop. You may use any type of brush that you prefer to smudge with. Tho there are brushes specifically made for the smudge brush that mimic the blending tools in Painter.

Application: After blocking in your paints select the smudge brush of your choice and start using it as you would a paint brush. Notice the harder you smudge the larger and the more pronounced the are of effect is. You may want to use it very lightly in areas. You will understand why with more practice and you will develop your own smudging techniques as you progress.

2- Airbrushing: Very simple and straight forward. There are multiple airbrushes you may use in Photoshops default brush set.

Application: Use lightly in areas where you want to show a smooth transition between light and dark. Be very critical when using the airbrush as sometimes you may go over an area and it will look out of place. Use on a separate layer.

3- Layering: The third technique is called layering and is basically using a translucent brush (whether hard edged or soft is your choice) and applying paint over and over again until you achieve the desired gradient. Use of the colour picker is necessary in this case as you will pick light and dark colours very quickly.

Hope this helps you out a bit and as always feel free to PM me whenever you need advice.

[anibawl]

Oh man. Thanks for that. that helps a TON.

[Brashen]

Nothing new? tsk tsk!!

[anibawl]

hahaha... Brashen... I did what you told me to do.. I've been working on Anatomy and what not... here's some random stuff from my sketchbook.

These are from a book I got from Hastings. It's really handy, it's Drawing Cutting Edge Anatomy: The Ultimate Reference for Comic Book Artists




I did these from CharacterDesigns.com... I didn't really try hard on the faces, I just wanted to get the right poses.

[anibawl]

These I did from Stock images on Deviantart.com:
I was going to take the character on the right side out, but I didn't because well... I don't know. The two peeps having almost the same pose was coincidental... I was like afterwards



This is my roommate playing halo, it was a really fast sketch and I was pretty happy with how good it came out for him sitting there maybe 2 minutes




And these, if you think you've seen these you more than likely have. They are from FRUITS, the japanese fashion magazine. I wanted to learn to draw clothing and stuff and this is how these two pages came out.





That thing on the bottom... with the beard and big googly eyes... o.O I have no idea what it is... just came out.

[Brashen]

Hey hey hey,

Great stuff you got going here I'm so glad your still posting and getting better with your anatomy I see. The roomie sketch looks good and feel right. Try to go for more dynamism with your pencil strokes tho dont stroke in the same direction.

Keep it up with the anatomy practices. You've still a got a bit of a way to go to nailing that torso. Let's see some hands next shall we?

[krisCrash]

I like that room-mate one a lot, I can't say why! And good foot studies, they can be hard to make sense and form of I suppose... many people cop out.

[Imaginary]

Keep them studies coming, your doing great so far!

[anibawl]

Brashen : The next posts I put up after this one will be hands. I should have some by like 7:30 tonight... And torso's? Are they too big? or just weirdly proportioned? I know there's something wrong with them but I can't put my finger on it.

KrisCrash : Thank you My roommate actually was pretty flattered by you guys. Lol... And the feet were killer to make. I'm still having a bit of trouble actually attaching them to the rest of the body, something about the where the ankle falls on the leg... ARGH

Imaginary : Thank you very much I'll try to post a bunch of stuff very very soon. Hands being my next studies ^_^


I'm actually also trying to do the CHOW of the Goblin Gunslinger... Just to see if I can do it. I'll try to put those up here as soon as I get it finished up or whatever. Thanks guys!

[anibawl]

Alright.... here are some hands I've been workin on since this morning. The scanner sucks here. My lines aren't really THAT messy, I even tried to clean some of it in photoshop. But... that didn't help me much.



There... Shame shame. gets the idea across though I think.

I use a 4H pencil to do everything which is wonderful for me, but sucks trying to scan *cries* I should use a darker pencil/ink some of this shit. OH well... tell me what you guys think.

[Imaginary]

The hand studies are great. I think that you should studie the skeleton and the muscles of the hand also to achive even better results.

Have you tried increasing the light and contrast btw? Or played around with levels (ctrl+L)? That usually cleans my scans up.

[Slothboy3000]

Nicely done hand and feet studies (something I really need practice in myself). I'd say the line quality on those hands looks clean so I wouldn't worry about that too much.
The roomate study is also good. Try doing quick studies from life more often. It may not seem like much, but subcionsciously you'll be picking up on things and gradually improving your figure drawing.
As for the torsos, they're generally out of proportion. It helps to try and measure everything out, and see if for example the arm lines up with the hip, how many head lengths/ widths go into this etc

Hope that helps, keep it up!

[smws]

Lookin' good, but more to go on would be great. Keep it up!

Hah! I like 'Fruits" too... we on CA have only one overriding request: MOAR!

[anibawl]

Imaginary : Thanks and your right, I do need to do some skeletal studies of the hand. Probably everything else too I did put it in photoshop and mess with the brightness/contrast and even the levels in cs2... it just kept showing marks that weren't visible on the ACTUAL paper... it was weird... I might just need a better scanner.

Slothboy3000 : Thank you very much And I do know what you mean about doing studies from real life. I haven't been doing that too much lately because I was trying to find out the basics through studies or whatever, but i SHOULD do more life stuff. It makes sense that all that stuff would just be getting PLANTED into my drawing habits. And... I usually do try to measure my figures... subconsciously they are always like... 6 1/2 heads... maybe 7. Which I know is wrong... but ... argh! As for the width though I never measure that. I'll have to start doing that

SMWS : ^_______^ I shall try to post up as much stuff as I get done. Thanks :]

[Brashen]

Ok great start on the hands....and honestly these sketches are too clean. Let's see some dynamic lighting in your next attempts. Go wild with hand gestures. Study some of the master artists paintings to see understand the techniques they used in depicting them. Keep it up.

[Brashen]

Hmmm......empty por quoi?

[anibawl]

DUN DUN DUN.... I ... *shame* have not posted anything in months!


I know. I need to. I will. I've been mega busy with school. And work. And being broke 100% of eternity.

*sits straight... puffs out chest*
BUT! I WILL OVERCOME. I will be doing a lot of posting within the next few days leading up until forever... or something. I don't know. But I will. You'll see

[anibawl]

WIP for COW i'm doing

[anibawl]

AH!! My first digital painting. I finally learned. It's really bright and the colors aren't very different from each other, but I'm just happy I learned. It was the COW 140... maybe I'll win


WIPS

[The Whistler]

Hey there! Nice SB start, I love post no. 5 an those hand practices!

I can't really crit anything you have because it seems like all you need is practice. The only thing I'd suggest is that when you shade, make hatches follow the line of the body, it'll look better

See you around and keep up the good work!

[anibawl]

Thank you very much Yeah, I really really need to work on light sources and all that stuff. I've been trying to put up a self portrait thread where I wanted to focus mainly on light and all that good stuff

[anibawl]

So I haven't been logging in here for the past few years because I'm a terrible procrastinator and didn't have much time to go a 100% back into art. But I'm finishing school up this semester and want to start painting in Photoshop again. This one is a few months old, but tell me what you guys think!

[Eleyon]

I can tell that you have improved very much! Wish you'll continue posting this year

[anibawl]

Thank you! I intend on working on some new stuff. I always like going through old CHOW's and seeing if a topic gives me inspiration ^_^