skMOPBOOK! ☉_☉

[Pixie Trick]

Those hands up there are looking preeety good! Just watch that you think ahead and use the same type of strategy with your pencil rendering of you imagination stuff as things tend to get a bit scratchy and scribbly there.

Have fun with the exchange! Exchange partners, depending on their personality can be a blast! (... or crash )

[Mussy]

i like that jellyfish on page 1, really appeals to me

[InFlame]

hey skMOP,

I can see some good work here. I especially like the fruit studies and the still lifes. your gesture/figure drawings and your imagination work is getting better from piece to piece! you are going in the right direction! really nice, keep it up!

cheers,
rebecca

[Aberzheim]

Wow, your painting development in digitals is improving at a good rate- im still liking that Master study you did earlier on, the tones are well-developed, and the proportions are solid

Your pencils are getting better, but I'd take Pixie's advice- it seems that you need to pay more attention to the general proportions and shapes (esp facial proportions- the big one) so they read more accurately. But the direction you're in is correct, it just takes time and practice for the drawing, but you'll get the hang of it sooner than you think

[skMOP]

Pixie Trick: Thanks for the advice! Hopefully my pencil rendering is getting a little better. Yeah it was pretty fun , so pumped for Japan in a few days.

Mussy: Noo, the colors are so crappy and desaturated on it. Cool to know you even looked on the first page though.

InFlame: Cheers! Thanks for stopping by.

Aberzheim: Haha yeah, my master studies usually turn out looking better than everything else. And thanks I will!

--
Boring grayscale update...

30min sketch from head. I need to work on my girls, and anatomy,and fashion...and everything.


Thus, fashion studies!


Hands (from life):


Neck Studies (Bridgman)


Self Portrait!


Random sketchbook page while listening to FlyLo, intense stuff!


Sorry if any of these look too big.

[skMOP]

character from head..

he originally had a barrel for a head..to help me focus?

[papervampire]

studies are lookin really good, those hands look great! on the last ps painting it looks like you're getting a little lost with the values, try to keep your values distinct and separate, even hard edged if you have to! anyway yeah, lookin good!

[CarlSpringer]

im also 15 and im digging your digital work looks awesome

[ryan mcshane]

skmops 15? i like this last one bro

[Krato]

hard, hard edges everywhere. try to build an arm that looks like its well.. one complete arm, his left arm is really wonky, the lighting and values are all of everywhere their is a muscle.. word of advice, dont mess with colors for a good while instead work with your values in black and white and just try to show one continuous mass in your characters.. not a jagged sharp edged arm

[BluezAce]

Hands are indeed difficult things to draw! I recommend study it from Loomis' Drawing The Heads and Hands (you have it, don't you ). Just study and draw two or three hands from it everyday, and you'll see the improvement in your structure and mass (just like Krato say)!!

And indeed, your value is still need much works. Just mix some simple still-life on your study. It will help you with form and value


Regards,
Bram

[skMOP]

papervampire: Thanks, you're definitely right about the values.

CarlSpringer: Haha 15yo's ftw? Thanks, but not really D:

r y a n o i r: Thanks, but like everyone else said, needs work on values..

Krato: Dude thanks for the crit and not an asspat! Do you have any tips on getting a variation in edges?

BluezAce: Yeah I can't believe I didn't notice before how boring the values were, thanks for the recommendation. Right now I've been reading Book of Hundred Hands by George Bridgman to try and learn.(It's on Google Books). I should get back to doing still lifes as well, thanks for the reminder too!

--

Character sketch from head again with unreadable hands, weird process that involved a scarecrow line drawing first and then going straight colors(before I read all these crits of course ). I tried to foreshorten the (stage) left arm but that didn't work out too well. 2 hours or so.

Also: I think there is a difference in contrast/brightness with my monitor, because I uploaded this update from a different computer, and most of the work seems a bit brighter.

[Eddieee]

Hey man, this one's pretty nice.
http://lh4.ggpht.com/_0049F4bKCQE/TF...dom%20girl.jpg

You're right about the foreshortening not working out too well, cuz the left arm looks kinda weird (maybe do some arm studies from Bridgman). The cool blue greens are nice though. Keep it up bro!

[skMOP]

Eddieee: Thanks! Foreshortening is something I'm struggling with. I liked the LTS entry too if you ever come back to read this.

--
School is being annoying and consuming time again. It's the weekend and I get to draw! Stuff from today, and the TC from about a week.

A few hands from life, each one is about 500x500 at 100%. The quality drops as I get more bored with them D:


bananananana


Last Teen Standing R1 entry, hopefully there's a round two for me?

[raminafshari]

your last drawing is cool . so meaningful .

[skMOP]

Woo! Using my budget watercolor set. $2 for colors, $2 for crappy pad, $2 brush set.
The bad thing is that the paper ends up like this:


Brushpen (at least that's what it says o_o) SP


Some sketchy stuff.

[Pixie Trick]

Watercolour paper under 300lb weight needs to be stretched in order to avoid rippling and warping. I types out an overview on watercolour painting for someone else which I think you might find vaguely usefull.

First is the paper- You will need to get some watercolor paper. This paper is specifically made for watercolor and is thicker than your average paper. It is labeled in pounds (paper is made in rolls and cut into sheets, so if it says 180lb, it was 180lbs when in a roll) and the heavier the number, the thicker the paper. You will also see the labels hot/cold press. Cold press has much more texture to the paper and soaks up water faster while hot press is smoother.


Next is stretching your paper- You will have noticed by now that paper get crinkly when wet. In order to avoid this you can do two things. A- use a very, very heavy paper. or B- stretch your paper. Stretching basically pre-wets your paper and keeps it flat, so when you go to paint on it, it has already moved to where it will be. You will soak the paper until it is saturated, place it on a board, gently get rid of a wrinkles or air pockets and then tape it down. You can use butcher's tape (looks like butcher's paper but has stamp glue on the back. When you get it wet it gets sticky) or masking tape. Masking tape it iffy sometimes because it doesn't stick to wet paper. It does come off the paper unlike butcher's tape however. If you use butcher's take you have to cut if off the board.

On a side note, I have a watercolor paper pad which I love- No stretching! It's a bunch of watercolor paper that has been pre-stretched and glued into a big block. When you're done with a page, you cut it off and voila- a new page pre-stretched.

The Paints- You can get watercolors in tubes (wet) or in pans (dry). I know lots of people prefer the tubes because of more vibrant color, but I personally don't mind either. When the paint dries from the tube you can just add some water to it and it's good again. I wouldn't suggest getting the best quality (and most expensive!!!!!) paints until you know what you're doing a bit more.

Last is the fun part: Painting- I would suggest getting a good watercolor book out from the library or buy one. A lot of watercolor painting books lean towards the "How To" angle. Eg- this is the way to paint a rock/tree/water/cloud. As long as you don't take those as rules you can learn some pretty interesting techniques. I'm attaching some basic links on techniques- eg wet in wet (as Icecold mentioned), wet on dry, dry brushing, etc. I've been taught to start with the darkest areas and build them up using layers. The lightest areas will have the least number of layers.

Links:

Watercolor Techniques

How the techniques are used

So, there's a short overview. Hope it helps.

[Vritra]

Keep practising those pencils. Lines are important, drawing is important. With drawing, painting will come. Also, as you put each line, each stroke of the brush - think. It is very important that you not only use your physical faculties, but your mental as well. When you're only drawing using your hand, you're restricting your own abilities. It should be very clear to you the purpose with which you put down each mark.

Now I've gone and said unnecessary things. Best of luck with your art!

[Kungfoowiz]

Hey bro

The portraits are looking okay. You may want to consider doing studies of your face features separately. Also notice sometimes that your lips drift downward, watch that kind of thing, remember the rule of thirds. I think that's all for now, you are doing well. =)

[skMOP]

Replies later!

--
Blahh 2 weeks since update. Sorry if these look too big.

HANDS (from life)




Armies




watercolor (sorry for crappy quality)


bad idea all around!(from life)


random




Last Teen Standing Round 2 Entry...hopefully there's round 3 for me? Reference used on the hands.

[Kungfoowiz]

Awesome works, you are doing a nice amount of studies there. I don't have anything to crit really. =)

[LAL]

hey skmop my bro, I like those good studies, keep keep !

[skMOP]

LAL: Thanks dude, sorry for not stopping by more often!

kungfoowiz: Haha nah there's tons of stuff to crit on and that I need to work on.

--
Value study:

[andres333]

keep up the good work dawg
i suggest some gesture studies

[BluezAce]

Hey skMOP

Somehow I feel a hunch that you like painting approach better than using line (well, maybe it's just me ), but I agree with Vritra as I still see some basic flaws in your works.

Oh, the hands are looking better now. It seems you're able to spend more time on them than before. The other studies are good too, although you still have to work on line quality to avoid those "petting" lines. Read this thread as I see there's some things about line accuracy and confidence, hope it help you to improve

Good luck on the LTS!!

[skMOP]

andres333: thanks

BluezAce: Haha I try to use a mix of both? Thanks for the advice and I'll try out those exercises.
--
Just saw the scores from LTS and now i realize how much I suck. Really good to have this wake up call because ever since the last round I've been slacking and really not doing anything productive at all. I think I was starting to feel a bit too good about myself even. Time to get my ass in gear?

Didn't sculpt this or anything..but just a cool experience to paint where the 3d form is already made for you. First time using acrylics/tempura (double fail?)


Stuff from head.


scribbled some values over lines..


Self Portrait from like 2 weeks ago:

[skMOP]

30-75 seconds. from photos/posemaniacs







character from head..still know nothing about lighting..D:

[jeremygordon89]

Your self portraits and line quality really seem to be improving, and I'm definitely digging the recent figure studies. I think in the self portraits you could probably push your value range a little more though. Keep up the hard work; it's paying off!

[BluezAce]

Didn't sculpt this or anything..but just a cool experience to paint where the 3d form is already made for you. First time using acrylics/tempura (double fail?)

"The sooner you make your first 5,000 first mistake, the sooner you'll learn"
- Kimon Nicolaides

Keep failing, keep moving forward!

[skMOP]

I'm 16 now. When I started this sketchbook I thought I'd be so much better. I'm disappointed at my work ethic.

Still life from yesterday. Looks too plastic..


Random environment done from head; messing with m@ brush set. I think it's a rocket.


I don't normally post stuff from school because its usually unrelated/sucks. Ad design class; it was like a creativity exercise or something?