Andrew Sonea -14/5/2013

[ja1307]

really good work here, those last couple of glass digital studiers are pretty tight was admiring that female sculpture study you did back in August or a while.You have very very good understanding of form come across in your figure studies. Will def b checking in to see more.

[p sage]

You definitely have got that Watts' style/Reilly method figure drawing stuff going on. Nice work!

[Andrew Sonea]

bapsi: Thanks I need to post more though!

Forrest: Thanks! I don't do enough pencils either (those drawings posted are actually conte pencils sharpened so about an inch of lead is exposed, done on 18x24 newsprint)! I really need to hit up traditional stuff more. One thing I realized at Watts was how sloppy I have become due to digital. The whole "I can fix this later, so I'll just lazily put in this blob here" thought process is really bad and in the end my process and final work suffers.

udonhead: Thank you!

ja1307: Thanks! Hehe, everyone seems to like my studies. I just need my illustrations to get to that level now.

p_sage: Thanks man! I really want to go to school there. I'm saving up now and can probably afford a term within the next year.





So I noticed that my sketchbook is rated 5 stars! I've been waiting for this for a few years now haha! I have a feeling though that it's just a couple nice guys going around and voting a bunch of threads 5 stars because there seem to be a lot of 5 star threads these days. I'm not entirely sure I deserve all the stars, so we'll see how long it stays at 5 stars before going down to 4 again.


Anyways, here's a self portrait I spent an evening and a bit working on (well, it was a pretty distracted evening, so probably isn't even that many hours). I tried focusing on what I saw my weaknesses were at Watts Atelier--shape design and edges. Not sure how much I improved those areas, but I certainly had fun on the edgework. Hopefully it's not too dark on other screens...


Oh, and I almost forgot--I GOT A WEBSITE FINALLY! Check it out:
http://andrewsonea.com/

I touched up most of my portfolio for the site, but the changes were pretty minor so I wont repost the images here.

[Dile_]

Nice website mano! : ] The sp turned out great!

[Tadas]

so much improvement
5 stars from me too

[Bing!]

Man your life drawings are gorgeous!!

[Andrew Sonea]

Dennis: Thanks man!

Tadas: Woah thanks dude! You're getting damn good too

Bing!: Thanks!







Been feeling really stressed out lately and have had my thoughts all scattered and shit...gotta figure out some shit in my life sometime soon. And I should probably get some sleep since I'm running on like 5 hours per night or something stupid. And I should quit my job too as working fulltime next to a deepfryer isn't fun.

Here's a little something I started, and am bored of/stopped liking...not technically finished but whatever. I've got a few other unfinished things too, but I don't feel like posting them.

[Andrew Sonea]

Back down to 4 stars again, that was quick haha!

Some recent master copy drawings in a new moleskine thingy...they look kinda bad here, way more subtle and better value range in real life. Ah well!

[ja1307]

I think this latest batch of pencil master studies are great. The values and rendering are pretty outstanding I am jealous of your skills with the pencil.

[wutangclam]

my goodness man your work is amazing. i love how welld rendered your studies are!

[Andrew Sonea]

ja1307: Thanks!

wutangclam: Thank you!







Well, I haven't been productive at all lately. Probably only getting in a few hours of art per week...I keep letting personal issues in my life affect my art output I've also been getting like 4 or 5 hours of sleep most nights, which I'm sure doesn't help.

Anyways, decided tonight to finish off this collab with my friend Betty that was started a few months ago then abandoned for a while...

[DennisH-Art]

Damn awesome stuff man! Im deadly jealous at your youth and talent! Gonna draw my ass off now in order to make up for lost time! : o

Keep up the good work!

[Andrew Sonea]

DennisH-Art: Haha thanks man! Work hard!




Alrighty, finished off another piece that was almost done but had been sitting around for a while. Started it for an old Teen Challenge, with the topic of The Broadsword and the Beast. It's a bit rough in some places, but I wanted it to be a bit looser, so hopefully it looks painterly and not just unfinished. Anyways, done I'm done with it--I'm tired of it and need to move onto some new stuff.

[Niam]

I love the froggish-dinosaur(?) creature!! the master studies are just sick D:
you're improving so much!! D:

[skMOP]

really nice color combination on the last one! I think some snow on the trees and figures could be added for the sake of drama/story.

[Andrew Sonea]

Niam: Thanks! Glad you like that one and can see improvement

skMOP: Good suggestion man! But I'm done with that image now I think, I don't really think I can go back to it at this point--so sick of staring at it haha!




Alrighty, so this might be my last update for the year. I haven't been that good about posting new stuff lately I guess...but yeah, still painting away. Not as much as I should, but I'm doing bit by bit (won't bother posting most of the crap I'm painting though since it's like little doodle and studies and lame things). Oh, and I broke up with my girlfriend. It was the right move to do, but it's a weird feeling being single for the first time in over two years. And now I have other relationship headaches already, but I won't really go into that.


For now here's a painting I did for a friend as a Christmas present. I actually animated it to have snow falling, and it looks pretty cool, but the file is too big to upload to CA, so I can't show it I guess.



And here's a little study after Gil Elvgren. Feel like I learned a decent amount on this one, and I definitely gained a deeper appreciation of just how good Elvgren is! I also tried using the mixer brush tool to do a lot of the softer rendering, and find it was really easy and very quick!

[Erikly]

Amazing progress.. Freaking nice... you rocking it man! keep being an inspiration

[walnut]

I really liked that one with the rhino and the sword, sweet composition and colour harmony in there. The rest of your updates look pretty rockin' too if i might add hope 2013 gives you many happy moments that give you lots of energy to paint!

[Monsieur-Beefy]

Awesome update! Everything walnut said as well ^^^.
Your pencil stuff is ridiculously cool too.

[hücumkedi]

man i looked every pages...nice studies,nice ideas too in your illustrations..maybe needs some mood,i would be about your color choice... keep posting, ill be watching

[Jovian M]

youuuu are fucking killing it man. i like blinked and you got awesome. everything's lookin great dude.

[NITISH KUMAR]

really nice work...
The big improvement is easily visible from d first page to the last...

[Andrew Sonea]

Erikly: Me? Inspiration?? Wow, that's the highest compliment I can get Thanks!

Walnut: Thanks man! I like that one too...and I seriously hope 2013 will be a big year for me!

Monsieur_Beefy: Thanks! I need to do more pencils now that you mention it...

Hucumkedi: Thanks, I'll definitely work more on colour then! Big fan of yours btw!

Jovian: Thank you! I don't think I've really improved much the past year or so haha, but I'm glad you think so!

Nitish Kumar: Thanks! There's a good 3 years from the first to last page though, so I'd hope I have some improvement in that time!



Thanks again everyone for a big response this time around! It means a lot to me to get all these comments...especially when I've been fairly depressed lately and feeling as though I'm slacking with my art and not improving.



Anyhow, just tossing up a little portrait study of some random girl whose photo I found online and liked Parts of it are a bit sloppy still, but I think I've learned most of what I wanted from the photo already, so I'll just stop now on it.

[Andrew Sonea]

So I got an Asaro head as a belated Christmas gift yesterday...here are some quick studies of it.

[Forrest_I]

Wow man, seriously awesome stuff in here. Ah! I gotta go study you're making me worried with all your awesomeness! >.<

[Tea of Doom]

Hey great stuff here, the 2 pieces in 676 look fantastic.

My only crit would be to push the sharpness in the focal point areas of some of your pieces as they increase readiblity (for example 673).

Otherwise, good job!

[Andrew Sonea]

Forrest: Thanks man! Study hard!

Tea of Doom: Thanks for the suggestion!


Yet again I haven't been that productive lately...been feeling a bit depressed and stuff as usual








Process on a study I made as a tutorial for another thread... sorry it got all messed up with the attachments when I copied/pasted my post from the other thread D:

Now, this is a basic method of painting in photoshop, and a basic way of doing studies. This example is for a skull/bone because that's what the OP wanted, but in reality this is mean to show how to study any object or material or whatever.

Start off by choosing the image you want to study. In this case I chose a skull I got through google...I think I searched "art reference skull" or something because just googling "skull" had a ton of shitty cartoon drawings and stuff that wasn't helpful to what I wanted. So here is what we are studying:
Attachment 1675898


All we're gonna do is copy the reference. But not just "copy". More like analyze as we paint it. So I'll paint it while taking note of characteristics that are unique.


I start off by destroying the white of the canvas, in this case the background is essentially a black/dark brown. Easy so far.
Attachment 1675884


Now lines are an optional part of this. If you are studying structure using lines is pretty helpful, but for just colour or material I often skip lines altogether. But for this case and to make it a bit easier to follow, I did lines. You can see I don't like using very tight lines in general--I'd rather do most of the work in paint not line. Plus people tend to follow lines a lot, so if they are a bit off it will ruin things later on, whereas working just with paint you are more likely to fix shapes. At least in my experience. Note I'm drawing through the forms and thinking in basic shapes, spheres for cranium and sphere for the mouth/teeth area.
Attachment 1675885



The first lines I did were a very "feeling" based process and not very accurate. They helped my understanding but are pretty useless for any guidelines. So I do a bit tighter line drawing over top.
Attachment 1675886



Now, I don't want to mindlessly copy the reference because this is a study to learn. So I analyze the lighting situation and try to figure out how things are lit and how this particular material reacts to light. I make a sphere and light it hte same way as the skull is lit--two white light sources, one from above behind and one from above left.
Attachment 1675887



Just laying in a bit of value under my lines...I choose a darkish value so I can paint in the light on top of it in the next step.
Attachment 1675888



Starting to lay in the light form one side. It's not the right value yet, I wanna creep my way there and not punch things in right away because then I can't judge my values as well if I do. Note how large a brush Im using and how simplified and planar I'm painting.
Attachment 1675889



Adding some ambient light in the shadow side...
Attachment 1675890



Now I put in some of the brighter values.
Attachment 1675891


I felt the colour was lacking a fair bit so far, so I took a soft textured brush and laid in some more saturated colours. Here I noticed how orange/red the bone can appear when light shines through thin parts such as the nose. This is from subsurface scattering, and in this case is a distinctive feature of bone, so take note of this. This is the type of thing you learn from studies like this and can include in other work.
Attachment 1675892


Cleaning up the internal shapes a bit and punching in the darks now that the lights are established.
Attachment 1675893



Fixing up the outer shapes of the skull...
Attachment 1675894


Everything up to this point is reading pretty well, so I decide to do my first rendering pass.
Attachment 1675895


In this step I felt again the colour was lacking a bit (colour tends to disappear as you render in photoshop so you need to periodically introduce new colour into it). I took both the sponge tool and dodge tool to fix up a few areas a little. Then I selected the entire skull and stretched it a bit as I felt the shape was off (this is because my initial line drawing was off, and I stuck to it...a big reason I don't use line).
Attachment 1675896

I did a final rendering pass on it using a soft brush and introduced a bit more colour variation. Done! Of course if I wanted to I could keep rendering for days, but this was just a very quick study meant to learn about painting skulls. Any further rendering would be an exercise in, well, rendering. I learned what I wanted to from this study, so I stop now.
Attachment 1675897




Things I learned: Bone isn't as smooth as you might think, it's all textured slightly--this is especially apparent where planes turn from light to shadow. While bone is a yellowish colour, don't be afraid to add in other colours, there is a lot of orange where subsurface scattering occurs in thin bone, and in shadows there are lots of grey-greens and browns. Little details help sell it such as tine holes, knobby bits, sutures, gaps between teeth, etc.







Couple other studies:






Current work in progress illustration:

[TNiznet]

Great updates and sketchbook Andrew. Very generous of you to take your time for that skull run down. Hope to see more!

[Andrew Sonea]

TNiznet: Thanks! And I love teaching/helping others when I can, so it's really my pleasure to do that sort of thing






Just tossing a couple quick studies from tonight out here. Trying to lay down things a bit more clearly and more planar...not sure if it's working but I feel like I'm learning a bit. I just need to get out of this thing where I just do studies studies studies and nothing original...







Oh, and this is a quick sketch I did a couple months ago for this art test thing that didn't work out in the end...

[ErikHolfelder]

Your stuff is looking real nice, sir. Glad to see you're still going!

Lovely skull.