Miycko's taking his studies SERIOUSLY!!! NSFW (nudity)

[Incinerated]

theres some issues around the eyes, seems you have tendencies to draw blueprinted eyes ... I suggest you study individual body parts e.g eyes nose mouth, and make as many different types you can come up with, helped me alot, still good studies non the less ... rock on

[BludHund]

Hey miycko,

It been a while since I dropped by your SB.

1. Form
2. Lighting

WORK ON THEM. These two things are holding you back right now.

Your line work is incredible. But they are a bit overworked. Try to reduce the
amount of layering and scrubbing back and forth. Practice getting the line right
on the first or second smooth stroke. Practice with a very thin line (or a fine-point
pen) so that you can see your wobbles and errors clearly.

You colors are improving steadily. Push the saturation more.

Your anatomy and faces are pretty strong although you are kind of relying on formulas
and just drawing the same faces and body types again and again. Work on Form and
do more studies from Life. Get photos of your ref from several angles.

As to constructing automobiles:

http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/sto...e-Form-Drawing

http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/sto...w-to-Draw-Cars

I realize these are RATHER expensive but they are WELL WORTH the cost many times over.
I own quite a few Gnomon DVDs and at some point I plan to buy their subscription so that I
can access all of their training videos (you end up saving a lot of money that way after the
first 4-5 DVDs / downloads).

The rendering on those cars looks great, BTW, totally pro-quality.

Keep going man, you are working hard!

[Mr.Pryminista]

Miycko!

I've been absent from the forums for a few months now (busy with school) but I see you have to...where you been?

Anyways, I'm gonna have to echo a lot of what Bludhund mentioned. Your understanding of light and form is still relatively rudimentary. I'd highly recommend drawing and painting from life. A good way and simple way to practice is find objects that resemble the basic building blocks (spheres, cones, cubes, etc...) light them in a variety of ways (with use of a lamp or something like it) and then just practice drawing that form over and over again from as many different angles as possible. If you dont have the equipment to do it then just go outside and find the objects in real life and pay careful attention to how the light hits them, where the shadows are, how the light bounces around and off of other objects nearby, etc... Developing a concrete understanding of how light and form works requires careful study and lots of practice.

I think you're doing a great job on color. Most of what I saw on your previous page looked pretty solid. As far as pushing the saturation as Bludhund mentioned, I'd say that will depend on the type of image you're making.

The work you did on the guys looks top-notch, very pro quality. However, at a foundational level (the construct of the vehicle) is a little off on both cars. There were areas where the structure of your cars felt "wonky" and loose, not solid and intact like a car would be. The rendering of the cars are stellar. You're a good renderer and you work very cleanly for the most part. That's a great quality to have.

That's all I got right now.

All the best! Let's see some more work!!!

[miycko]

Incinerated Hey dude, thanks so much for the advice - i tend to do the same eyes over and over, will make sure i do studies of those soonest

bludhund You are so right my friend, to be honest my line confidence is in the gutter! i'm so used to going over the same line multiple times and it's not an easy habit to get rid of but i guess that's what practice is for i really have gotten used to my formula, will try to do more varied face and body types, as for studies from life it's a slow process for me but i'll keep doing more and more of those till i get used to doing them

thank you so much for those links, they'll be very use in my attempts to draw vehicles it really has been long since you visited, thanks for passing by and for the great advice dude, really appreciate it.

Mr. Pryminista Dude! i've been lazy the last couple months, well, to be more precise the last two or so years. trying to change my ways and get back to drawing seriously. Draw from life - i hear ya, its something that scares me but gonna do my best to do more of that my construction method for vehicles really is wonky at best, i'll keep practicing and hopefully rectify that soon.

Thanks so much for passing through dude appreciate the support.

So i've spent another couple of months lazying about again, stuck in a rut and feeling like its pointless looking for inspiration or trying to find a good reason to draw. Here's hoping this is a turning point

i haven't been completely idle though, there's a little bit of work i've done here and there which i'll be posting. not sure how often i'll be updating though, especially considering how i've promised to regularly update then disappear for months at a time but i'll try my best to keep this thing going now to the art

First of all some work i did for an advertising company here in Zambia, it was very low paying and i knew i'd end up spending months chasing for the cash (which i did) since i've done work with such companies before, so needless to say this wasn't my best work... i got to practice vector drawing though, very happy about that








Some poop! from imagination



Some photo studies

Woman using ATM 1 hour


Black Dress Study 1h 30 minutes


Defeat 1 hour


Chains Curch 4 hours, yeah i really suck at perspective, buildings etc so i take forever!, help and advice here would be truly appreciated


will upload some more soon
cheers

[dierat]

Zomg an update! XD Oh great work on the car study btw, that looks fab. Keep up the good work!

[miycko]

dierat "Zomg" ROFL gonna try and update regularly this time around. thanks so much, planning on doing many more car studies - actually i've got another one in this update

Some poses from imagination
last night i decided to try something different, i'm very slow at drawing line art so i took bludhund's advice to try and get the line right on the first or second stroke, there's plenty of 'undoing' involved but i spent a lot less time on them than i usually do will have to try it with a pencil next time, i'm sure its gonna be hell!



1920's Car Study
I'm enjoying doing the vehicle studies, previously i was too scared to even try drawing cars. basic vehicle construction is still something i don't have much knowledge in though, please help.



5 hours
29/07/12
Photoshop CS5

Chooser!
i finally finished this! i started this in December and let it drag until now thanks to my laziness it's supposed to have been for an HIV campaign that creates awareness through the use of art. the idea is that the girl's got multiple guys with different qualities going after her, it started with three characters but i later decided to push it a step further and bring in all sorts of characters to make the scene more interesting and help convey the message better. yes the background is very plain, i had a couple of ideas for this (like a basketball court or a football pitch) but they didn't work very well in practice, well that and the fact that i just wanted the image finished by the 30th hour.

In any case i'm very happy with the result comments and crits are very welcome.




44 hours
28/06/12
Photoshop CS5

thanks for looking
cheers

[Creusa]

miycko, hey!!! bout buildings and perspective, try to make them look casual, dont use any straight line tools or it'll take forever indeed QvQ

[Mr.Pryminista]

miycko...i see you have lots of new studies...but i cant see any of your new images. maybe its on my end. will try again later!

[seagulls]

Miycko, good update mate. About your perspective...you were after some feedback - The buildings are actually pretty good, not the same as the photo of course, but fairly convincing in proportion. The photos getting close to 3pt perpective which is pretty hard to picture in your head when you draw it. And the lines curve in the photo anyway. You dont hafto draw up the grids everytime, just keep it in your mind, and the shape of a box occasionally, It's pretty slow to start a picture with a billion perspective lines. So Maybe, do it rougth then tighten it up with lines later. Then maybe you can use a big brush to do a whole side of a box, say the side of the building instead of tiny perspective lines.
Like in the car study, there is evidence you would have pictured a box later when tightening it up as it would be tedius. It think a softer brush for the car would work wonders in making the gradients, but do it much before you add further detail.

[Mr.Pryminista]

Okay, I'm back and I can see all your new updates now. Hooray! You've got a large batch here. Great to see all the new work! The last piece turned out quite well. There are parts where I would've played with the values a bit more, just for distinction, but as a whole it turned out well and reads well and has style to it.

I like how your car turned out, you're quite good at those. However, I would like to mention that you don't need to spend time on rendering wheels and hub caps. I would just take them straight from the photo and just paint over them a bit to integrate into the piece. You save time and you also prevent the wheel and hubs from have wonky proportions.

Those figure studies from imagination came out well and sound like they were a real challenge for you. That's a great thing. Keep practicing those.

The building came out nicely but the proportions are off. You straighten the whole thing out instead of following your reference (this is not to say that one must always follow their reference, definitely not, but since it's a study you want to absorb that perspective information). You captured the design, but not perspective, so overall you did learn something. Go for capturing the perspective next time. If something seems like its gonna be hard then thats all the more reason to do it.

The figures in your photo studies suffer from proportion issues. For instance, the woman at the ATM is standing up straight, in your study she is leaning forward and is shorter. There are also thick lines around her. Try thinner, softer lines when you start out and rely on values rather than lines to define the form.

And congratulations on doing some paid work! The pay might have been low but the experience is what counts most.

Great work man. Let's see the updates coming!

[freakmod]

Hey miycko,

That car looks PRIME!

On the buildings - try to get the big basic 3d blocks in first. Then add the details and relief stuff in later. The perspective and basic shapes are king in architecture.

[BlackDelphin]

Nice variation in subjects and ideas! And i think the reference you're using is very good, makes me want to use it as well.
Good progress, keep doing it, keep getting better!

[miycko]

CreusaHey there, i really suck at doing building. will try out your way and see how that works out. thanks for the advice

Mr.Pryminister that last painting really was a challenge, to be honest it got to a point where i just didn't know what to do with it, i'd paint for an hour or two every other week until the deadline finally come and i had no choice but to finish it. It would be nice to go back and fine tune it but not until i've got lots more skill under my belt

I'm quite surprised with the ease i'm able to render cars, i guess practice in other areas helps. you've very right about the wheels, they take forever to paint and still look like crap i'll try that out and see what happens

i haven't progressed much with perspective, really need to practice that, i plan on doing a lot more studies like that so here's to plenty of bad attempts to come

Oh and i'll keep the proportions and values in mind for future studies, it's way too easy to miss those things but that what practice is for right. thanks so much for the positive feedback dude

seagulls i rarely try to draw anything in 3pt perspective considering how much i suck in that department but it doesn't hurt to try over and over and over until you learn something that's great advice, i'm gonna try out your process, it sure sounds a lot easier than drawing each and every line. the soft brush really does make the gradients easier, i'll remember to put it to good use. glad you're back on the forums dude and thanks for the positive input

freakmod Dude, thanks so much i'll be sure to practice that until i've got some sort of skill with perspective

BlackDelphin yep, more variation - i'm trying to get out of my comfort zone, that's not to say they'll be less ladies but rather more of everything please go ahead, it would be great to see your take on the reference

Here's a quick update since i've done a bit of drawing

BMW
i started this study a couple weeks back and finally finished it the other week.


5 hours
07/07/2012
photoshop cs5

Environment studies
These i did today during work hours since there wasn't much to do, it took thirty minutes to do each of them. Atleast i tried


Wonderful Ass in Jean Shorts
And finally my favorite subject of all! did this photo study before leaving for work this morning, it's been over a year since i did that - feels good


2 hours & 40 minutes
16/07/2012
Photoshop CS5

Comments and Crits are very welcome
Cheers

[BlackDelphin]

don't mind if i do
drew your last two landscapes in pencil

and btw, seems i forgot to mention, i really like that hoola experiment you drew on the other page, it turned out quite nice!

[miycko]

BlackDelphin That's so awesome. post them up - i can't wait to see them

Update

My screen at work
i painted this yesterday just before going home - it was a bit easier to do than i thought it would be, it's unfinished but i'd rather redraw it than continue with this, maybe i'll paint from home next time. 55 minutes


Some more Environment studies
Also done yesterday, the first took 45 mins and the second 40 mins


Sketches from imagination
i intend on doing some scifi pics for the imaginfx rising stars competition, i didn't know they'd gotten rid of the age limit so i can now enter, though to be honest i could have still entered a couple months ago it's just that i wasn't drawing at the time. in any case i decided to do these as ideas for paintings


Character Designs
I forgot to mention i changed jobs again, about three months ago now. Lucky enough the company i'm with now is encouraging me to draw so even though i'm not getting as much as i'd like i get to do what i love more freely so they want me to do a comic book featuring the people i work with. there's no story yet but i figured i'd have a crack at the characters, i did these two today, didn't really keep track of the time but i think each took about two and a half hours


i'm so glad to be updating regularly once more
comments and crits are very welcome
cheers

[BlackDelphin]

I'll be doing more studies today, and post them as well. Sorry for my new leap of absence, been away with some health issues.

Nice desktop! I really want to see you post more studies like that. As for the landscapes, I thought you can't find reference like that, nice soft edges one can find in those.

The sketches and the characters you designed are ok, but i would like to see more line variation. As for the idea, those two look like a fighter and his manager or something like that. Good to hear the new job is working out for you.

[HunterKiller_]

Hi, thanks for dropping by.

Lots of quality work going on here.
I think you should try to draw more from life, doing too much photo ref work will make your own work very flat and static.

I also think you should focus a little more on structured line drawings. You're doing well on tonal rendering but all the rendering in the world isn't going to cover up a wonky drawing.
Use line-work to accurately identify geometric forms in the subject and drawing through the forms - not just the outlines.

[miycko]

BlackDelphin that doesn't sound good i sure hope you're better by now an don't worry about the absence, mine's been due to issues waay less important. ooh i'm doing more studies from life this time around, aiming for atleast once a week the images are stock i got from work a couple years back (it's too bad i lost 80% of them) always knew they'd come in handy, i'll be posting lots of updates with studies of those. looks like line variation and line confidence are two subjects i'm gonna struggle with for some time - moar practice Thanks so much for the great feedback Blacky, on mi way to your sketchie

HunterKiller you're very welcome dude Very true, it's one subject i've been avoiding for way too long - MOAR studies from life coming up. You've made a very good point dude, drawing through the forms is something i really don't understand, googled it a couple times but didn't get anywhere, some help on this would be much appreciated. Thanks a lot for your input dude

So here's a very small update, yea i know it's been some time but i aint been slacking. i've done some stuff for a contest on deviantart.com which i cant post here unfortunately and some more of the characters for work that i haven't had the chance to upload yet. Anyways, here's the stuff

Study from life
A 2 hour study from life i did last week or was it the other wee gosh i'm a day late for this, gonna do one today - after all i promised no slacking done on 23/07/2012


Characters
A Tiny update on those characters for work, the guys at work wanna be portrayed as well known characters so i wasn't really satisfied with the older man, i've redone him - there's no way you're gonna fail to recognize what or who he's supposed to be! the guy in the centre's gonna be a roman warrior and the chick at the end was an hour long doodle


Shirt Commissions WIP
i'm not satisfied with my salary at work, lol. okay so even though it's better than what i was getting at my previous job, it's nowhere near what i need to to be even a little comfortable with my life. so i've decided it's time i start taking commissions, only problem being it's impossible to do locally cause art/animation/games development (which doesn't exist in zambia)... well basically anything artistic is considered to be in the realm of children's toys or fantasies down here in africa, with the exception of south africa of course but that's out of reach for me at the moment.

so i've decided to start doing commissions online so i can supplement what i receive at work and hopefully someday become my main source of income, i can definitely make enough time for commissions since this job isn't as demanding as the previous two. The only problem is that i've got absolutely no friggin idea how to go about it. i've made some posts on deviantart and done a couple searches for sites with paying work for artists but i've had no luck at all. please, please help, you've got no idea how much i'll appreciate any help on how to go about this

in any case i decided to draw something indicating that i'm doing commissions which i can use for my deviantID and other sites as well - should be finished with this tonight so if you've got any crits you'd better be quick


man i've rattled on and on in this post i can only think it's a good thing, the next update wont take so long.
as always comments and crits are very welcome so fire away

cheers

[maria riaz]

hi Miycko....long time i have been here, good to see your progress, love how u r making so many figures and adjusting them together so comfortably, very nice studies of cars, quick sketches pays of well, hope i will start doing that practice again....very refreshing to see your work...keep it up
cheers!!!

[miycko]

maria riaz it' great to see you in here the figures really are difficult - i'd even go as far as to say painful at the moment but it should get easier the more i do them - boy am i looking forward to that day you seriously should get back into it, i'm so looking forward too seeing your stuff thank you so much for the encouragement

cheers

so not much of an update especially considering the fact that i promised to do some paintings from life and still haven't gotten down to it i gotta do three this week if i wanna catch up, me thinks putting a bit more pressure on myself to get them done should help with the getting them done part any ways todays updates

Characters
Still adding on to those characters i'm doing for work, not an easy task when you have to do it in between jobs but hey but it's more practice for me and i'm getting more and comfortable with doing it... seriously! at first i was pissed about the fact that i have to do this for a fraction of what it's worth but the more i draw the more i realize i'd rather have the time/freedom to practice in the office than not draw at all so i'm starting to do these with more heart so to speak


Maid
after a couple hours of failing to draw i decided to try and do something a little more fun. This is the result

2 hours 40 minutes
Photoshop

Shirty Commissions
i finished this painting over the weekend, i'm doing commissions for two reasons, the first being the fact that my day job doesn't earn me nearly enough to get by and the second reason being the fact that i've NEVER used a WACOM tablet before, they're not available locally in country so i would like to save up enough to order one online. so how's about it? commission me will ya, lol


i'll post work in progress images for the Maid and Shirty commissions images next update and hopefully i'll have some life studies to go with
thanks for looking

cheers

[miycko]

At least i was a little bit productive today here's what i've got

Another Character for the guys at the office


Maid
Work in progress shots for this


2 hours 40 minutes
05/08/2012
Photoshop

Shirty Commissions
So here's the work in progress shots of the commissions piece, i'll just repeat the text from up top in case you haven't read through:

i finished this painting over the weekend, i'm doing commissions for two reasons, the first being the fact that my day job doesn't earn me nearly enough to get by and the second reason being the fact that i've NEVER used a WACOM tablet before, they're not available locally in country so i would like to save up enough to order one online. so how's about it? commission me will ya, lol



15 hours 45 minutes
04/08/2012
Photoshop

From Life
And finally a study from life if i can manage to do two more of these before the week ends i'd have done myself a whole lot of good


2 hours 30minutes
07/08/2012
Photoshop

Comments and Crits are very welcome

cheers

[Mr.Pryminista]

Hey Miycko, nice new updates! Nice life study too!

I've mentioned this before but watch out for those line weights. What you have on the maid actually works even though most of the line are of the same thickness, but it doesn't seem to work as well with other characters (the image that starts with man holding the basketball). I'd also spend some more time doing drapery studies and how clothing wraps around form, particularly human since you've being a lot of characters lately. For example, the pant folds on the man with basketball and the man dressed like a cowboy both look incorrect. Pants simply wont fold like that. The kung fu dude in the same panel, his pants look better. As a side note, there doesn't have to be many fold lines present on a drawing, especially ones that are more cartoon-like, so long as the folds look and feel correct.

You've gotten better with rendering form but its still feels a bit flat. For example, the woman's face on the "Now Taking Commissions" poster, her head doesn't feel round because the values on her ear are the same as the rest of her face. This is what causes her head to feel flat. While you've done a pretty good job rendering her face and ear, the ear should've been rendered within a darker range of values so as to give the head the appearance of being round.

Hope this helps. Rock on man! You're doing good work!

[p sage]

Hey man, long time no visit.

Great that you're really still into the work and everything... you're really wanting it.

The drawing from life (desktop?) was kind of good... it's really critical to have good observational techniques, even when you mostly want to work "out of your head".

The biggest thing I'm still thinking about when looking at your work is something BludHund said... form. (lighting actually should come after form, since you won't know what you're lighting until you can draw it).

Structure; form. The easiest way to get your head around form is to start simple... boxes, etc. Try to imagine a box sitting on a particular floor. Don't draw out the perspective; instead, imagine the proper placement for it on the floor. Then draw it without drawing the inside lines.

This has a direct relationship to drawing shapes that read, from your imagination. That means your characters, your elves, your motorcycles... whatever's in there.

If you can get a box from your imagination to read... without guide lines, without perspective lines... put another box next to it. Turn it. Flip it. But make it look like it's in the same room, on the same floor as the other one. That means you have to look at that the FIRST box while drawing the second one.

It starts like that. And from boxes you move to other shapes... but the box exercise can get your head "in" the drawing, and not on the surface of the paper ("on" the drawing).

I'm working hard at this, because it feels like the right path... if feels like my mind is opening up to bridging all of my artistic knowledge from observation to my imagination. This is the right way, IMO.

So I invite you, my friend, to practice that. Think of those hands on the guys hips as boxes turned in space. Get them to read. Think of all of these things you're seeing as things that take up space. They can't take up the same space as anything else.

Good luck!

[HunterKiller_]

Nice still life study. Good to see that you used proper construction first before painting.

Good advice from p sage.

[Justyna]

Hi!
Haven't been here for a while, I can see you've been pretty busy.
Great job with that poster for HIV campaign with a group of people, looks really nice

[BlackDelphin]

Nice studies since i was last here, figures and all. Just post more, more moreeeee!
Good luck with commissions, the cover looks nice by the way.

[Mr.Pryminista]

Where you at man? Let's see some more art!