Andrew Sonea -14/5/2013

[crisimikiwiki]

Mother of god....absolutely fantastic! Subscribing!

[Andrew Sonea]

ErikHolfelder: Thanks man!

crisimikiwiki: What a compliment! Thanks!







So my sleep schedule is messed up beyond belief these days...messing with my productivity I think. Off topic: I finished watching Cowboy Bebop and loved it!


Uhm, yeah all I have to show is some shitty studies (helicopter obviously isn't finished) and a crappy plane from imagination. I feel so lost here it's not funny, but I wanna get a bit of a hang of mechanical things...I hate having such a glaring weakness. And sci-fi stuff is cool, so it'd be fun to actually be able to paint it. The asaro head is pretty sloppily painted haha, it was a warmup drawing, but still, that's an excuse...

[kikindaface]

woooow, crazy studies duuude !! especially the helicopter and portrait, i agree that the head study with planes lacks of solidity ( i think both because of lack of good proportions/construction/ perspective ) and of edges ! keep it up duuude !

[Monsieur-Beefy]

Your colors read really well on the chopper study. Very nice!

[Andrew Sonea]

kikindaface: Thanks man! I gotta just think things through more to get my stuff more solid.

Beefy: Thanks!





Bah, been SOOOO unproductive. I find these days I have no motivation. I sleep through my alarm, don't wanna get out of bed, spend my time just lying in bed browsing the internet or watching movies or anime. Yeah. Anyways, a very quick sketch of a samurai...I watched Samurai Champloo and had to do something on this theme. And I know he's white and not Asian, but whatever. I tried focusing on edges, shape design, and laying things down clearly. Not sure how much it shows though.

Fortunately I think that some personal shit in my life is basically over, so I can once again stop dealing with drama. Might have lost a few friends, but that's life.

[Eightball_]

hey man sorry to hear about all the personal stuff bogging you down. all i have to say is keep your head up, you can do it! your studies lately have been quite nice. my only advice if you wanna start tackling hard surface and sci fi stuff is to study industrial design! doing photo studies of helicopters only kinda covers the surface of things. studying ID sketching helps you understand the ins and outs of mechanical forms and turning them in space. this feng zhu vid was really insightful on that topic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrbfOpIP_UY hope that helps! that being said tho, that plane design is pretty sweet. keep up the good work!

[Aksel Ludvigsen]

Good boy. Now don't stop! And put up a new TC/IOW, you're half a week late. ._.

[Overtoom]

Man do I love your pencils! Stunning. Your digital works too, so much volume in some of the portraits, incredibly skilled!

[Andrew Sonea]

Eightball: Thanks a lot man! Super helpful link! I tried it out a bit below

Aksel: Already talked on skype

Overtoom: Thanks! I never really do any pencils anymore though






Bleh. Some paintover/tutorial thing I did for someone wanting some help with their life drawings, a 1 hour shitty landscape photo study, and a couple planes construction studies. A few perspective mistakes in them (poor measuring/guessing of angles, going out of the cone of vision a bit etc), but I'm learning I guess. Damn I'm unproductive though.

[kingkostas]

thanks for sharing knowledge, you have lovely works, keep up

[skMOP]

Hey Andrew

Thanks for the lengthy and kind comment on my sketchbook. I wish I had things to say that were as helpful as your comments but I don't. You mentioned some perspective mistakes and I tried to fix one here. Odds are by the time you read this you've already figured it out haha. This isn't an exact measurement but should be I think closer to the actual.

At a certain point all the construction and perspective stuff "clicks" after all the practice. Not to say that I've got it down but I definitely remember going through some revelations of "hell yeah I constructed something!". Also a tip I'd offer is to try cars. They were a lot easier for me personally because it gave me a ground plane to work with. Hope I helped a little bit.

[Andrew Sonea]

skMOP: Thanks for the advice with cars, I'll try that out. And I appreciate paintover with lines to try to show me what's wrong. The wings certainly do look really off in my original, and you're actually the THIRD person to draw on top of it to try to fix the issue! That being said, I think yours has an error. If you look at the center of the purple rectangle you have created, that vertical line does not match up in space with the center of the plane's body. While it seems to shoot up vertically from the centerline on the TOP of the plane, this is at a different height than the centerline of the plane at the height of where the wings attach. Alright I'm gonna stop trying to explain in words because it's super confusing and because I keep wanting to use the word plane as a two dimensional surface and not a vehicle!

Long story short, here are two ways of finding the length of the wings. One shoots verticals up like you did (this is actually the way I originally measured it), and the other does it on a horizontal rectangle of the wing. Ultimately both use the diagonal through the center point to mirror it. The first image is a bit sloppily drawn and doesn't show how everything was found exactly, while the second image shows a more careful way of analyzing it. Hopefully this makes sense (and is drawn correctly)! Perspective is something that can be a bit confusing for me since I know a bit (not a lot) of theory but haven't really done the exercises or put it into practice. The only thing I KNOW to be really off in this is the little thing sticking out of the wing where the wing bends (it's got landing gear in it). I know the far one is misplaced...but the length of the entire far wing I believe is correct.

And lastly to address the issue of why it is so distorted looking, I believe it is because the wing is extending out of the cone of vision, or at least extending to the very reaches of peripheral vision--see the third image.

[Andrew Sonea]

Yikes in the last week I really haven't painted... I did however do a bunch of redlines and paintovers for people. Check out this awesome thread (the ones I did this week are all on the second page, the older ones I've done are on the first page):
http://conceptart.org/forums/showthr...-for-posterity





Anyways, a quick little study after Susan Lyon I did the other night. I liked the restraint on detail in the shadows, and the nice bold brushwork. Very difficult to copy digitally though! Fun colours in there too.

[kingkostas]

looks great, good work !!!

[Niam]

congrats on the website! awesome studies! nice pencilwork too!

[Deadlyhazard]

Are you still feeling kinda bleh and unable to get out of bed? Not to get too personal, but you might want to see a therapist. I did that for myself a few weeks ago (finally willing to admit I had a motivational problem) and found that I had....issues. Anyway, it was life changing and is helping me a lot. Not saying you need it but it's a good thing to consider if you can afford it and think you have an issue.

Anyway, keep up the good work!

[xinranliu]

damn son, leveling up!

[I STRaY I]

Hey, I've visited your Sb many times, I doubt I've ever had the courage to say anything, because I'm quite simply intimidated by awesome artists. You have some truly awesome skill, but what I mostly wanted to express gratitude for was your ability to share and help others become better. I recently read your post in GrayPersona SB and found it to be so valuable, as is much of your advice in the crit forum. Thanks for being that inspiration.

[palladium]

Hey Andrew, thanks for stopping by my SB and critiquing. Really do appreciate it, and wish I could return the favor but after looking through your sketchbook, I've noticed that you are on better track than I am when it comes to buckling down and studying. Definitely an inspirational thread, will stop by again soon.

[GrayPersona]

hey andrew I just wanted to stop by and say how much I appreciate you leaving a comment and helping me out.
Your work is amazing and I am sure that in a couple years you will be up there with the jaime jonses and the craig mollinses of the industry .
if you are interested I replied to some of the stuff you mentioned in the comment.

[Harkins]

Amazing thread, gave it 5 stars. Your progress is incredible man, keep up the good work.

[ecki]

Wow, I just saw your sketchbook and I'm really impressed!

Great progress man, you'll be going far

I just wanted to drop by and wish you all the best!

[Andrew Sonea]

Thanks for all the positive feedback guys! I feel bad for not responding now, but I promise I'll answer all of you next time I update.





Anyways, I haven't really been doing so well lately...not sleeping well (either not enough or too much, and typical bedtime around 8am), not feeling motivated etc. I honestly haven't been working on anything to show, mostly been wasting time online or watching shows. The number of hours I've put into art since my last post is embarrassingly low...probably single digit.

Tonight though I managed to knock this out. I discovered Janaschi updated her DA http://janaschi.deviantart.com/gallery/ and was blown away by her recent portraits, both in the way they are painted and in the efficiency timewise. So I tried out my hand at it, had to do it from a photo instead of life though. Anyways, this took 3 hours. Not very happy with the result though...it has some impression of finish and stuff, but honestly I feel it is very superficial, and if I actually look at it I realize it is very poorly executed (especially compared to Jana's portraits). I am especially unhappy with the muddy transitions between light and dark, for some reason I had a lot of difficulty in maintaining the major forms and not overworking/ruining it. The edgework and parts of the hair are really sloppy too, I think I was rushing to finish in 3 hours. But for the sake of this sketchbook I figure I better update.

Oh, btw, my monitor stopped working so I bought a new one for pretty cheap. Things look good on it to me so far, and I hope the images I paint on it look okay colour/value wise on other screens.

[BettyJiang]

Hope you feel better soon, hope to see more of your work in the future.

[Aksel Ludvigsen]

Oh shi-

[Andrew Sonea]

kingkostas: Thanks so much man! I'm a big fan of your latest stuff! I don't know how you pump out so much art.

Niam: Thanks!

Deadlyhazard: Thanks man...to update on the PM's we were sending...no, still haven't seen a therapist. But I am starting to pull myself out of it now I think.

xinranliu: Thanks, you too! Love your recent designs!

I STRaY I: Woah dude, major compliment here...all I can say is thank you!

palladium: Thanks man, do stop by whenever you want

Harkins: Thanks, appreciate the stars!

ecki: Thank you!

BettyJiang: Glad you finally made an account. I hope you will have fun in China this summer...hopefully that distance will do us some good, it's unfortunate how things had to turn out.

Aksel: "Oh shi-" indeed.






Okay, so...first thing's first. I GOT ACCEPTED INTO SPECTRUM 20!!!! Finally achieved this goal of mine, and it feels good. The full list of names is here: http://www.spectrumfantasticart.com/


So...I haven't been doing a ton of art lately, but the past few days have been better. I've started forcing myself back to a more normal sleep schedule (not sleeping any later than 3:30am), making sure to eat all my meals each day, and have been trying to avoid wasting time doing nothing. The result is I'm painting a lot more. I've also been doing a ton of paintovers and red lines lately for the art board at 4chan, and also finished up a commission I can't show.

Oh, and I signed up for a CGMA class--I'll be taking Dynamic Sketching 1 with Patrick Ballesteros. Should be good, but I'm suuuuper rusty at traditional drawing, and my mark-making skills have disappeared in that section. I've started going through Vilppu in my sketchbook to try to get back into things, and I'm learning a lot from Vilppu, but I'm still bad with a pencil and pen haha, such bad line quality (no, I won't be posting any of it)!

In any case, here's some art...


Started this for the CHOW, missed the deadline, finished it tonight. Pretty happy with this one, especially considering I only used direct ref for the skull and the jaguar.


WIP Velazquez



Studies (probably forgetting one or two somewhere on my computer)...




Colour testing for a collaboration with Piemonster (he did the lines, I'm gonna paint it).

[Andrew Sonea]

Been doing some Vilppu pen and pencil stuff too that I'm not gonna bother posting...

The first few paintings here are "quicksketch" things I am trying out. Inspired by Conte's sketches, trying to just get the main information down, play with colour, brushes, technique, shape etc. All done in like 10 to 20 minutes, painted smaller than the size I am posting.






Failing at line...


Focusing on laying down information clearly and not ambiguously or "hiding" behind texture/muddy values.


WIP study after Duran:


EDIT: Also updated the CHOW one because I had people complain about the jaguar. It still looks pretty awful though...

[nim]

great chow result! thanks for the example enviro sketch by Pao you linked me in my sb. that was really cool and inspirational. kutgw

[Fetsch]

realy great work man, the studies look all very solid, especialy the last portrait painting is realy well done! Keep up the good work, looking forward to see more.

[Andrew Sonea]

nim: Thanks! And I'm glad I was able to help you out

Fetsch: Thank you! I love your stuff, so it's great to hear you like it. And I'll always be studying haha, so plenty more in the future to see.




So remember how I mentioned I got into Spectrum 20? Well I found out that not only did I get in, but I have both images I sent them get accepted--so I get two pictures in the book

Anyways, here's a photostudy I did that I found really challenging...the values are almost all the same and the light is coming from every direction. Also the face is straight on, which means you want it to look symmetrical, but the face isn't perfectly symmetrical so you gotta get it just right. Tough stuff.



And a little progress on the collab thingy. Changed up the colours and lighting a bit, and am trying to differentiate materials.