Danny's First Sketchbook (Learning to draw)

[Danny_K]

LtPlissken Wrote
"You are
a true warrior who never gives up and a clear shiny path
will be always infront of you. So happy to see a very positive
attitude and environment here. Keep the light shining
and the fire burning."

Dude that was encouraging as heck, I should print it and stick it above my desk. thanks for the sweet words!

surfandsnow Thanks man, critique that hit the spot I changed the temperature of her skin to be cooler, I used a yellow field background at the beginning but didnt like it and changed to the snow but the skin tones were still part of the earlier color scheme, luckily with an adjustment layer mask it is easy to do, cheers!

Been pushing myself all week had 6 days off which is AWESOME so was painting and drawing every day, spent a lot of time on learning perspective, heck it took me some time to grasp it but I feel it gets much easier from now on and its fun too!




This is a part of the perspective exercise from "Vanishing Point" highly recommend it if you want to learn perspective like a professional.
I took this exercise to a whole new level and went way and beyond than what I was supposed to, experimented with brushes and textures.





I gave sketchbook pro a try and I like it, the pencil has a nice feel to it better than photoshop.

[Icecold]

Great to see you tackling the persp again and again. I have a suggestion tho.
If you keep 2 vanishing points fairly close on the screen you will get huge distortions just like you did get here. The hard part is putting them way beyound the page which automatically makes it feel more natural.

The best excersise for starting out is trying to draw perfect cubes in space, different angles, point of view etc. Try avoiding those huge distortions tho.

Anyway, good stuff D.

[LtPlissken]

I am very glad that I have cheered you up a bit.
It's a nice thing that you are working on the perspective
field also and that you are trying out some new variations.
The general idea is to experiment all the time, do something
that you did not done before, and I mean that same theory
applies to real life. Cause if we always do what we always done,
we will always get what we already got.
Smart talk was never meant for me,
but what I was trying to say is
that you are doing good
and you are evolving well.
Simple as that.

[Danny_K]

Thanks for the Advice Powel and snake.

I love owls I think their awesome, especially after I saw the Legend of the guardians I realized how much I like owls
And I am definitely purchasing sketchbook pro its awesome

[Danny_K]

Legend of the guardians fan art no refs, I really enjoyed that movie...

[Danny_K]

portrait studies, concentrating on construction and the feel of each individuals face, helps to try to get the feel of how things look instead of copying every each feature.

aand a collab with my 3 year old on windows painter, haha

[surfandsnow]

As Ice mentioned the vanishing points on the 2 pt perspective are too close together.

One thing that can be helpful when your drawing 2 pt perspective on paper is a recession grid, so you can place one of the vanishing points way off the page, but still measure it accurately so all the lines will properly trace back to the vanishing point

http://www.handprint.com/HP/WCL/IMG/LPR/farvp.gif
http://www.handprint.com/HP/WCL/perspect3.html#table

The Faces in the last batch are really starting to kick ass!

[BludHund]

Beautiful faces!

Let me suggest that you try to bring your perspective studies and your
figure studies together...meet in the middle.

On your perspective studies try to work quickly and freehand, try to let
it become a matter of judgement and instinct rather than and intellectual
puzzle. Do some sketches of simple forms in the 3D space, then try
combining them together, rotating them and re-drawing them from
multiple angles.

On your figure studies, take your time, try to work slowly and thoughtfully.
Really understand the forms and foreshortening, work on making your lines
clean and confident. Start with the greatest simplification of the forms as
possible, then work in more anatomical subtle details.

Those owl studies look beautifully, but I'd like to see some analysis of the
forms, not just a faithful copy of the image.

P.S. thats a pretty badass cottage and duckpond for a 3-year-old!

[Danny_K]

surfandsnow thanks man, i'll keep that in mind as I learn more about perspective

BludHund Thank you for you excellent advice much appreciated and surely keeps me in check. lots to do not enough time
You are doing nice progress in your SB too bro.


WIP...derp

[Danny_K]

studiezzzZZzzzz


Hogarth stuffz, cant believe it but I finally understood what rhythm means, Buyah !


Quick Portrait studiezzz


Portrait from imagination

[Charmer]

Hellyeah Danny's improving!
I love the faces some posts above. Man, hands down, you improved your head drawings so much in the last year. The Owl studies are also very, very good!
Oh and for Painting maybe you should take some serious looks into Richard Schmid's Book "Alla Prima - Everything I know about Painting" which I will buy as fast as possible. It's worth every penny and a lot more!!

Keep it up my friend!

[Danny_K]

Thanks bro I have alla prima its AW$ome!

I hit my eye last evening and freaked out because it became all blurry and red and hurt... it pretty much ruined my evening so I went to bed prayed that it will be gone the next morning and save me a trip to the eye doctor and luckily my prayer was answered... i'm fine now

Doodle doodle

[Chris Sanders]

Love those nipple rings! keep up the good work pal, it's nice to see your hammering the fundamentals and applying the knowledge to your own work! great to see ms paint get a shout out aswell

[Danny_K]

Thanks Chris.

Portrait study process, particularly paying attention on construction.



And me almost getting hit by a rocket...

[BludHund]

"cant believe it but I finally understood what rhythm means" CAN YOU EXPLAIN IT TO ME PLZ?
Hehe. I've come to believe that rhythm is one of the most completely fundamental aspects of art.
Certainly to the aesthetic aspect of art (which is to say the nature of Perception at its most basic level).

Some time when you have some time to burn (hehe) you might check out the book Art and Visual
Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye by Rudolf Arnheim. Its a really a uniquely artistic
and comprehensive look at the study of perception.

Great work, awesome to have some days to just work, eh? I am taking 2 weeks vacation in july to draw and
I CAN'T WAIT!

[Danny_K]

Man some times it take a long time for knowledge to really sink in for me, in this case few years LOL but better late than never. its one of those you think you got it but you haven't really... you know?

Anyway happy art making in those 2 weeks, don't slack I want to see results.

Good tutorial


And a very good website with tons of resources http://www.sycra.net/


Here's a quilck environment study and a droid inspired by Anthony Jones incredible droid designs.

[p sage]

You are moving on up... that constructed head looks great.

[Danny_K]

thanks dude! I have been home for a week so I spent most of the time drawing and painting. how are you doing? I saw you closed your sketchbook?


Portrait studies, LOTR and the Avengers.

[Danny_K]

a knight doodle to start the morning

[Danny_K]

portrait no reference.

[BludHund]

Great work, as usual, Danny.

Girl in the last painting: Rendering an proportions look good but there's something
weird about the shadows. I think especially her head should be casting more of a
shadow on her neck, give it more separation and depth.

Also, try to avoid over-using individual strands of hair...its really hard to do right in a painting.
Instead, where the hair becomes loose and tangles, try making more blurry, like smoke, blending
into the background or into the skin tone.

In general I think you could really benefit from some studies of form shadows. You seem a little
unsure in the way that you use them, at the moment.

Other then that:

- Try using bigger bolder brush strokes, avoid lots of small fussy strokes.

- push your values (especially darks) and try to keep clear separation between your
value groups (IE lights and darks should not be too close together in value)

- as always, take your time. Especially in paintings there's a lot of value in piling on the
mileage on one image. Even if it doesn't turn out the way you want it to, you will learn more.

You're relentless man, getting better every day!

[garboz]

Whoa! The way you've improved as an artist is very inspiring! I'm learning so much just from looking at your progress. Not to mention some of the great advice you've been given. Keep up the great work!

[Danny_K]

garboz Thank you for dropping by and I am glad to hear you are inspired by my progress

BludHund dude what can I say you point out exactly what needs to be pointed out, maybe you should consider becoming an art instructor in the future?
Thank you for the reminders and pointers bro i'll keep those in mind!


Alright I got some cool news I got a part time job as an art instructor with a big company that distributes all the major paints and pencils such as Grumbacher and Ko hi noor pencils. I will be doing art classes at the Michael art store. as starters I will be teaching Acrylics and than probably pencils and oils and stuff. I can sure use the extra income atm...


An Indian girl sketch to start off the morning, 1-2 hours no refs.



photo study



this weeks Chow is sci fi pinup girl, heres a sketch, I dont like the gun makes her look tiny and the design is lame anyway.


The chow was inspired by this photo of 40's 50s pinup girl, how times have changed...

[Danny_K]

Good resources for Gesture/heads/Figure practice

http://www.lovecastle.org/draw/

http://www.artsyposes.com/models

http://www.pixelovely.com/gesture/figuredrawing.php


Sketchbook pages, gesture practice with photoshop and a new painting WIP, worked on her face for 2 hours, what a nightmare.

[Danny_K]

Chow! and steps...

[Danny_K]

I am still unhappy with how I draw heads so I decided to analyze myself and turns out I needed to go back to the basics, stop rushing and be gentle with the pencil and loosen up. being self taught sure has its bad habits.

I also noticed I don't know how to draw the ear... it seems I was avoiding it for all these years, all I needed was a two page study and now I know how to draw an ear.

Venderpool really helped me to strengthen the basics of facial features, excellent book.

Ordered a book stand from Amazon, it is sooo useful.

[Chris Sanders]

Hey man thanks for the comment. You have a death grip on those studies, great workload. I think the changes to the Chow are an improvement. Try twisting the torso or not rotating the head quite as much as it looks very uncomfortable, like assuming she could rotate it that far around, she would have a very uneasy look on her face. Look at the reference again and see the difference in the head position. Also try and get some more plains in the face, at the minute its very idealistic and almost childlike. Have a look at all the subtle changes in the photo ref. All in all its' a cool design, i like the ball thing, i think it'll be a great portfolio piece if you fix a few things.

Peace!

[Danny_K]

Thanks Chris, I noticed the problem with the head and its too late now to fix it as I will have to repaint the head and readjust its angle, I'll just move on to a new piece and learn from my mistake


Some WIP environment that reminds me of flying toilet seats and some thumbnails I did to get some ideas of what I had in mind and a Chow WIP.

[Icecold]

That book stand, is it custom made or you just bought it? I'd love to get one.
I recently slack less and sue books more, that's why ^^'

I wrote it on your blog already, but this page shows a ton of progress. better porportions, better values, better colors. Everything IS getting better.

Wish you could attend some lifedrawing, but knowing how your job looks like it's not really an option isn't it? :/

Have a nice day D.

[Obstfelder]

Hi!

Great sketchbook you have here.

I'm a fan of the gnome design for this weeks character challenge. I like that you decided to do a non-elf character. There seem to be a bias for elves in general