NeonDuck's Sketchbook

[zeezee1210]

Love your work, especially the poses and hand/feets studies.

Your figure drawings do seem to have a flavour of Mike Mattesi have you used his book? or developed it another way?

[NeonDuck]

thx for the comments guys!

zeezee: yea, I probably got that style off mike mattesi's book. it's a great one for line quality and flow, altho I think he caricatures his subjects a little too much

here's some more head studies:

[PeteJ]

thanks for commenting in my sketch book. Your head studies all look great.

[Mazui]

I really like your environments. The other stuff is mostly good too.

[Wingal]

Love the animals! And your pencil environments are really good (not that the other ones arnt) but i enjoy them =)

[zeezee1210]

Love that last male head study in red!
Think it's the eyes and jaw line I like most, can't wait to see more.

[Volute]

What a great sketchbook you have !

I really like your pencil work, especially the environments. They have so much delicacy, they're awesome.

Keep it up !

[Elophant]

Nice head studies in here. Good work.

[goldilockz]

Oh wow! You're awesome. Love the studies, and I think I saw Michael Clark Duncan in one post, love that guy. Thanks for stopping by my sketch thread so I could then discover yours!

[p sage]

Okay... I wanted to come by your thread because it looked like you were serious about getting better and weren't interested in butt pats. I don't want to go Chernobyl on you or anything... but here goes what I hope will be helpful critiques for you...

great studies here and you are obviously working hard to improve and focusing on the important things whilst staying away from colour. That is a seriously good decision, and very classical in terms of training. As with most people I dived straight into colour when I started my sketchbook, and now I am taking 3/4 months off to work solidly in pencil and inks to really get those foundation skills down. Without that foundation it is hard to improve, so nice work on staying disciplined.

One crit from me would be to try and avoid blocking in a dark outline which is continuous. Continuous outlines flatten images and take away depth. I see why you place a heavy line around the figure as it does bring out the depth, but remember to break the line if you can

This guy has it right. As Yoda might say, "Yes! To Obi-Wan you listen" (cept I'm not Yoda ;p)

Here's the thing... a dark line implies a hole. You can stick things in it. You can cram stuff behind it.

It also removes what you've drawn from its natural lighting and its space, and turns your shapes flat. Essentially a uniform dark line implies a flat light from right in front of your subject so that a rim shadow appears around the contour.

Light like that doesn't exist in 3D. You cant uniformly light a 3D object like a body from the front and get a uniform rim shadow around the edge. So, a dark outline turns your shape flat. Really try to get away from thinking of "drawing" as creating a contour; think more of drawing as designing and constructing 3D shapes.

Specific Crits:

This one has decent proportions, but the outline kills it.

Sometimes the proportions get away from you, as they do here...... the arms look strange because the foreshortening isn't working. It's not working because no depth is conveyed there (the guy needs a neck, too... )

From that observation, I see you went to the basics here... which was a great idea, but those shapes aren't convincing 3D shapes on a 2D page.

And that's really the trick... to pull off the illusion of depth in your pictures. Starting with cubes, spheres, and pyramids is great... but you have to commit to making those look as solid and believable as possible before you can draw the model convincingly.

One more "crit" and then some good stuff... you're familiar with Betty Edwards, so I'll just give you the phrase "eye symbols" and leave you with the same advice as above... don't put a dark outline around the eyes. Pick up Vanderpoel's book (it's about 7 bucks)... and is excellent for showing how to draw eyes.

I really liked how these studies went:

http://conceptart.org/forums/attachm...1&d=1290826060
http://conceptart.org/forums/attachm...1&d=1290921854

From a book? Remember to try and internalize your studies immediately as you do them. As I've suggested to others here... if you're studying something, yet drawing something else from your imagination... your studies are like spinning your wheels. Use what you study to draw from imagination immediately.

Finally, these look great. From a book?

I didn't want to be too harsh with you as I think you need support and positivity. But I believe it's also dangerous to get thinking that you're on the right track sometimes when mistakes you have made for a year have been holding you back.

Remember that not all folks here are professionals (myself included)... but many are. I would seek out their advice and take much of the rest with a grain of salt.

My advice comes from classical training I received at one of the best art schools in the US (Barnstone Studios)... but my skills have yet to be honed with the information I've received. This means that I'm by no means making masterpieces right now; but I know of what I speak. I tell you this so you know why I feel at least a little compelled to give you feedback.

Keep working hard, and observe how others who are making great art go about their business. You may already be doing that.

Cheers, good luck, and happy drawing.

[greyskill]

Wow, you really have a good grasp of movement in your drawings. You lines are full of force and action, I could really learn something from studying some of your studies. Putting movement and action into characters is something that even really good artists sometimes miss.

Also, I really love your studies with tone wash, those are excellent! Keep working on your faces and hands, they are looking really good, and I can see that you have been improving on them quickly!

Keep up the good work! I look forward to coming back here and seeing new stuff!

[Lightpunk]

Hey NeonDuck,

Life studies are looking great (love the red pencil!) also really like those environment value studies. I wanted to say thank you to you for your comments on my sb and advice to get to life class, it was something I've been meaning to do for ages but you spurred me on to actually do it and I'm loving it, so thank you very much!

Keep up the good work dude, will be checking here regularly!

Best

Kris

[NeonDuck]

finally got around to doing another update!


thanks for the comments, much appreciated!

p sage - many thanks mate, you raise some good points!

line weight is something that gets away from me sometimes, in almost all cases where you've pointed it out I can see it happened because I was over-correcting. trying to find the right line sometimes takes a lot of tries, and especially with a conte pencil (charcoal/crayon stuff) it goes really dark really fast. I'll work on that!

not sure where you're getting eye symbols from, I think you mean it looks too cartoony. it's not the same thing but noted nonetheless. Eyes are still a bit tricky, and I have to correct a lot while drawing them.

drawing volumes - check, doing that. not sure why you're not seeing it, maybe the construction disappears under the heavier lines, maybe I can do something to bring it out more. definitely something for me to think about.

all those studies are mine, I don't copy from books much... yes I'm very proud of those two-tone hands and feet



so, update time! here's some more faces, and I was noticing my line quality going to pot over the last few weeks so I did some animal studies just to draw something "swooshy".

a bit embarrassing to still be posting drawings from 2010, but I guess that's a good thing - I draw faster than I can upload

[NeonDuck]

time for another update

haven't really stopped drawing, just stopped posting. so my backlog is massive by now, i'm posting 2010 stuff here


as usual, crits more than welcome, bring it on!

[NeonDuck]

update time!

the usual studies, mostly animals this time. pay particular attention to the alternative bear head design drawn by my lead artist

the last 3 are feng zhu studies, so they're really just copies, not studies

[tronrobot]

Thanks for the visit man! great perspective in these new ones.
and i love your life drawings. Keep it up man =D.

[p sage]

You've been working hard, my friend. Dominate those edges!

[NeonDuck]

thanks guys!

some more studies and feng zhu copies here, and a bird picture from imagination:

[n1frit]

Hey! Thanks for checking my! U hardly push anatomy and animal studies as i see! And u doing it well! So keep it up and post more work will be interesting to see your future digital stuff! Cheers!

[smallergod]

Hello Neon Duck thanks for checking out my sb!! and thanks also for the advice I take all crticisms really seriously and i welcome them as I want to become a better artist. I do work with construction lines but i have a more freeform approach to my figures (bunch of loose circles seems to do it for me).

Now, I think your work is really great, I love the animal studies! specially the birds and the bear, i'd like to know what references are you using? the faces are also very good and I sure know they can be very tough.

[ear5cm]

Hi~
Thank u for checking my sketchbook~
ur animals are very cute,I like them, plz keep doing these

[NeonDuck]

thanks guys! I usually use photo reference, except for life drawings. too lazy to go out and draw from life otherwise

some more updates, all digital. only the train engine is from ref, the rest from imagination

[tronrobot]

Fuck yeah!

[James Thomas]

Trains epic man. =/ real epic!

[wasabi89]

Hey man,
Great stuff in here. Everything is pretty solid too
Keep with it, its def helping a lot

cheers

[Minelo]

Hey! I really like your studies. Your life drawings especially, they have a very nice sence of movement and life. I don't really have any crits, explore some color maybe?

[NeonDuck]

thanks guys, yes I'm doing some colour studies, will post soon

some more pencils, mostly figures and hands:

[Metal Fingers]

those perspective studies are nice man! keep it up I'll always remember your thread attachment/avatar from one of the first people that commented in my sb.

[DNVN]

Hey man thanks for the post in my Sketchbook i really appreaciate the honest and constructive critisism i feel that is hard to come by sometimes, great stuff in your sketchbook i really got some good ideas on what you were talking about. cheers

[NeonDuck]

you're welcome guys, I always try to give some constructive feedback when I see interesting sketchbooks. nice to know it's appreciated

some more drawings, the usual anatomy: