Stickboy makes good! [ update 03-28 - Neuromancer- the beginning of the end ]

[sourgasm]

Skip ahead. These first few pages are pretty horrific !

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Welp. I swindled my way into school here in good ol' stinky san francisco, and that seems as a good a time as any to start up a new sketchbook. My old one sucks the proverbial nut a solid 98% of the time and I need to suck balls more like 94% of the time. So, here's to that!

I am learning. I don't pretend to have any real idea what the hell I'm doing.

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redrew this guy. larger and less, you know... shitty.

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20 minute digital figure studies. peaked over at other students work and figured out a few things i was doing right and, mostly, wrong.

as you can tell by the vastly varying styles, i really need to nail down a consistent method.

[DanielC]

Looking good man ! Keep in mind less is more !! :]

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thank ya. i'm guessing the less is more sentiment is directed at my ridiculously over-pencil-raped first guy up there?

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shifty light test. gave no real thought to anatomy, only direction of light, and it shows.

[snootchy]

hey SOUR-G i like this direction ur heading and think its great to approach from all different ways to get to the end result and figuring out which ways work for u the best, just be conscious of not becoming too formulaic as that can dull the process, its always great to have that feeling when u've accomplished a new method to apply texture, brushtroke, composition, or whatever it is

as for ur latest exercise, i think that is an excellent approach but u stated 'i gave no real thought to anatomy' and even if ur doing an exercise of rendering light, u still need to be conscience of the forms ur trying to render and itwould be nice to see u do a render exercise just like the last but break down the anatomy into simple forms like boxes cylinders and spheres and try to render them with whatever lighting u had in mind

keep up the hard work buddy!

SSG 69 ARTGASMIC FORCE
Mission: To push our skills to evolve to the point of giving you visual orgasm.
Eon l grenappels l snootchy l Peetaer l bleupencil

[kinjura]

Hey man. Sucking the nut is relative and I find it encouraging that you're still prepared to do it over 90% of the time! If it helps any, nothing in this thread sucks nuts. Hell, it's a sketchbook and that's the place where you have to feel comfortable to make tons of mistakes. Thanks for sharing this stuff and keep me posted when you update; I'm really interested to see where you go with all of this, particularly now that you're in school. Speaking of which, what school did you get into?

[sourgasm]

snootch- hey, thanks for the thoughtful reply. you're probably right that i should keep anatomy in high regard no matter what the level of the study. i'll keep that in mind in the future, definitely.

kinjura- thanks! i'm prepared to suck as much as it takes ;p. i'm currently going to school at the ca.org atelier in san francisco, though i feel a bit out of place amongst such crazy talented people.

here are a few composition study speed paintings. no brush changing, no references. just comp study.

update on the light guy, too. i think he's looking a lot better.

[algenpfleger]

Yeaaaaah good thread man! Can't wait to see where this is going. Chaaaaaaaaargeeeeeeee!

[snootchy]

great to see you approaching speedpainting differently

the guy u were rendering before definitely looks much better and didn't require a whole lot of change but few value adjustments and the position looks better than before, great job!

as for composition, I like that you're approaching it without all the fancy custom brushes, but I think working on different types of perspectives as well as scale of objects in the compisition along with contrast would really be beneficial; since speedpainting is a technique that utilizes everything at once versus a more systematic approach where u are starting with underpaintings to overlays (glazes) or such

the first compistion i like because it has a dynamic horizon line, giving the static poses in the comp some interest

the second one could use a bit more atmosphere or less contrast in the people in the background to separate the distance between the two groups

keep up the great work, like the progress ur making!!!

SSG 69 ARTGASMIC FORCE
Mission: To push our skills to evolve to the point of giving you visual orgasm.
Eon l grenappels l snootchy l Peetaer l bleupencil

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algenlkalskjdfsaltnpepper: thanks!

snootch: thank you, sir. i have to get better at composition real quick, so critiques are ridiculously helpful for me. i'm going to briefly touch these up based on what you said and what i've realized since, and post a few new ones later on tonight.

[monotony]

great new start, dude.
I really like the your pencilrendering you show on these characters on the top.
for help opn composition I really recommend the environmentoring section I recently got pointed to myself. a lot of useful information, down there.
I know it's a bit of a lazy tip but I just rereading them myself and really thing they help.
keep it going, man.

[sourgasm]

Monotony: Environmentoring section, eehhh? I didnt even know such a thing existed. Thanks!!

Just started this one, so feel free to rip anything about it entirely apart.

Also, any of you folk I know the work of headed to Dallas?

[localfatheaded]

looking good, just keep up the studies and they'll definitly pay off big

[sourgasm]

fathead: that'll be no problem. i spend 3 hours a day cast drawing, and at least 10 hours a week figure drawing :P

speaking of which, here's a figure drawing. also, slight update on environment from yesterday. very slight. next time i post it, it should be a bit better.

[DanielC]

I see you're going to dallas.... huuummmm bring you sb !

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i'm bringing about 50lb of junk

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business card mockup. i'll probably mess with the fonts and try to get something a little more interesting.

[IanE]

Business card looks legit! The face coming out of his chest is off center towards the left of the card, though, just a little? Reminds me of the stomach guy in Total Recall!

Also, watch the forearm thickness in Post #9.

Keep working, dude. You're already well on your way. Page 25 of this sketchbook is going to be awesome. I can feel it.

[MattGamer]

nice to meet you man! great stuff here
i'm so excited to see what you have in store
for us in the future man!! ;] ca atelier all the way!!

so much more in store for usss here at the workshop! sickkkk!!

[phiq]

Hey man, some good stuff here! Your strengths I can see lie in your penciling style and your tones. Love that life drawing of the young lady there. Very good that

As for crits, some work on your from-imagination anatomy would be cool, but that's pretty standard for all of us across the board. Also, watch out that you don't "overdo" your painted pieces... ie, labor over them too long.

Keep plugging!

(...Korben Dallas! Love that movie to pieces )

[sourgasm]

IanE: looking back at the guy from post #9 makes me feel like a retard. all of his joints all massive and he's stiff as a corpse. it didn't matter for what i was trying to accomplish, but for those just scrolling through (everyone) he looks like some kind of dead mongoloid :P

maatttgaaaamer: good times, man. provided it isn't in shanghai or whatever, i'll see you at the next one!

phix: it's always great to come across someone who recognizes the avatar. icon from the school here in even drops a quote from the movie every once and a while, which is awesome.

just for reference, i thought i would post some of my pre-school portfolio. sorry that some of it is, uh, not good ;p

[sourgasm]

sketchbook poop. mostly done at reverie. without ref, cause i'm a loser.

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trying to apply some new thought to old ideas.

old sketch vs new paintover. both are speedies.

[snootchy]

sup Sour, liking them business card designs =)

Man how was Reverie?! As for the sketches with no ref, I notice your head or figures have a slanted look to it, do you sketch on paper at an extreme slant or view the paper at a slant? Reason I ask this is because I use to have that problem all the time when i was younger, i'd draw looking at the paper at a slant and would look alright but when i looked at the paper straight on the proportions were reallly off

Also for composition, it might be helpful to do ref or study of some enviro pics; try taking the color picker and move it around in a picture (like from way background all the way to the foreground) and take note of saturation, contrast, where the most details occur, negative shapes, and list goes on but u get the idea.

Ur like the maestro trying to composite a beautifully harmonic piece when taking all those things into account.

I like your latest compositional study, only thing is I think it could use some more seperation in foreground, midground (not needed), background; a quick a dirty way to establish some atmosphere is to keep ur foreground elements as ur most top layer and midground underneath and background below all of it, so now lets say u want to add some atmosphere in between background and midground, all u have to do is create a layer in between and color pick the sky (if outdoor shot) and use the gradient paint tool set on transparent and fill to ur liking
What this is doing is following some rules of composition, as objects get further into the distance they loose focus and color and almost blend in with the way background, so basically ur adding a light wash of background color so that objects suppose to be in the background almost fade off
This is one method and there are tons of different approaches but i think it's important to separate or at least establish some kind atmospheric perspective to create depth in enviro's

Hope this helps in some way, could just be morning wakey blah blah ramble...

Keep up the great work!!

SSG 69 ARTGASMIC FORCE
Mission: To push our skills to evolve to the point of giving you visual orgasm.
Eon l grenappels l snootchy l Peetaer l bleupencil

[k-dash]

Nephilim stuff is looking pretty good man, some interesting concepts. you should some studies of the lower body, esp the legs and feet in particular i think it'll help your work out a lot. can't wait to see more.

[sourgasm]

snootch: thanks, man! you always give the most in-depth critiques. that's the kind of shit i really need right now. i've been in the habit of separating my environments by fg/mg/bg for quite some time, but i tend to forget why i do it in the first place and end up slopping values all over the place. i need to make a checklist and tape it my monitor heh

k-dash: thank ya. yeah, i'm very slowly starting to pull out of my proportion and anatomy issues. these guys are about half way there- you should see my older stuff. painful

[Kristo Novo]

cool new sketchbook - keep going :-)

[MattGamer]

cool story man. i like how when i asked you about it,
you knew exactly what you were talking about and
what you wanted in the story. i have been working on
a world too, but i'm not that indepth yet.

post your new atelier stuff too! :]