Help Me Get Better

[Mr.Pryminista]

You looked like you were on a roll there...what happened!? Let's see more!!!

From what I see on this last page, you're doing the right things here and cranking out the studies, and getting good at a foundational level. You're maybe lacking a bit of imaginative work, so try some more of that!

Good lucK!

[vatteh]

Rustveld - thanks for the tip, I'm getting that recommendation alot. Will definitely start to pay more attention to it.
littlebones - thank you. Yeah I just recently graduated, but I'm not finding too much luck finding work, which just makes me want to focus on this even more.
Samszym - thanks. Yeah, I'm finding new exercises which help me incorporate my studies into my personal work. I know thats a huge problem of mine.
Justyna - Thanks man. Appreciate it.
Rain Walker - Yeah I know. I even have a small acrylic set I can use. I'll get around to it.
Mr.Pryminista - Yep. Right now my biggest weakness is my lack of stuff from imagination. I'm now tackling this problem more seriously by doing the CHoW competitions more often.

Well It's been a year since I been on this thing. I had to focus on finishing school and finding work in the mean time. But since I haven't found any good work, I feel that I should just focus on this again as it's now what I really want to do with my life. So hopefully I will be updating this sketchbook and getting better and in a year's time, be able to work in the industry. Here's some stuff I did in the past few months.

Master studies



still life

[vatteh]

Here are some memory studies I've been trying.

Heres a Sargent study I did. The second panel is from memory afterwards and the third is corrections I did after I opened the original. This exercise really helps; You see all the things you just don't pay attention to when copying ans going on autopilot.

photo study of the same thing


for these I just didn't bother showing the second step.

[vatteh]

Now here's some stuff from imagination I did. These were for the CGhub and CA challenges in the past few weeks. This is the stuff I plan to post more often.

[vatteh]

Here's more still-life studies of my busts

[vatteh]

Here's some stuff I did for recent CGHub and CA challenges.

[Saraiva]

Hey! Great sketchbook you've got here! The imaginative stuff is looking really nice! I think that the two things you should work on is getting solid perspective in your pieces (Like the last city one, seems like you got a bit lazy on the perspective :p ) and color. I think you should try thinking a little bit more in warms vs cools when you are painting from life. But keep it up, a lot of gems here

[vatteh]

Saraiva - thanks for the tip. Thinking in warms vs cools is so simple, yet I always forget to do it. Another mental note to remember.

More still life I did a few weeks ago. The human bust is really getting to me in terms of difficulty. On the first one I tried natural daylight and the dim light made it very hard to capture the lights vs darks. On the other three, I started with line to help block out the shapes, then went to values & colors. Its way more easier to go that route then to go straight into blocking in shapes.

[vatteh]

heres some random stuff

a photo study


a life study looking outside my window


sketch using little reference

[Setherial]

like your studies, very interresting stuff, interresting approach as well, those 3 steps...

[vatteh]

Setherial - thanks. I feel the memory studies are very helpful in retaining learned information.

master studies

[Nextra]

Nice work,

Congratulations on your improvements! Keep it up

[vatteh]

Nextra - thanks man!!

photo studies.
some of these are a few months old.

[vatteh]

some master studies

[ForScience]

You have a great sketchbook going on here. One thing that I have noticed is that you have greatly improved your perception of hue shifts within a single color form. Initially if you were painting a face you would just notice the value shifts that you thought you saw, but miss the fact that a part of the form was warmer in one area than another. You have gotten much better at that.

When you are drawing from memory or from your head you often will push the form back just using value. When form breaks into shadow it almost always changes in hue as well. For a detailed explanation as to why check out the book "Color and Light" by James Gurney.

here is an example of what I am talking about, from the context of your observational studies vs your imaginative ones.



Also note how Sargent controls saturation in the areas of the painting he wants you to ignore. He was a master of guiding your eye through detail, composition and color.

[I STRaY I]

Geez, from page one to the last is a huge improvement. I was thinking on page 1 how smooth and well blended your strokes were and by the final post you've seriously improved upon this. Very well done!

[vatteh]

Oushua-J - thanks!

ForScience - Thanks for the detailed crit. I really appreciate this! Remembering to change color as form turns is always something I have to remind myself on. Colors in general are definitely one of my weak points. And I actually have a copy of Color and Light, but it looks like I need to do some rereading. Thanks again for the crit!!! I will note this in future work.

Here's some challenges I did at CGHub

Drawing Jam #82 :: Halloween Special :: Hounds of Hell


Drawing Jam #50 :: Zelda 25th Anniversary
(I finished too late to submit this one)

[vatteh]

more challenge stuff I did

[vatteh]

more challenge stuff

[nouge]

Hey, real nice improvements here! Big leaps in rendering, especially.

You should keep an eye on your perspective, though. Think of where the horizon has to be, and make horizontal lines converge on it. Like with the scientist, the eyes of the viewer could be expected to be on height with the scientists eyes (or a bit below them since he's on a podium), but many of the horizontal lines converge at completely different heights. For instance, the bottom of the poster should be about horizontal, and the top of it should be "pointing" downward. The shelf with the cube on it should be almost completely flattened by the perspective. The top and bottom lines of the error screen converge at about the right place, but it's width should have been narrowed a lot more by the perspective, and since it isn't it has the kind of foreshortening you'd expect from something very close to your eyes, which it isn't.
http://conceptart.org/forums/attachm...1&d=1359017626
Do some practice to iron out these kinds of mistakes, and your environments will take a huge leap.

Keep up the good work!

[vatteh]

nouge - thank you for the detailed crit. I didn't even realize how off my perspective was. Now that I think about it, I probably didn't think about perspective at all. Thanks again for the heads up. Now I just gotta find some good exercises to practice this.

more busts

[vatteh]

more busts

[I STRaY I]

Hey Vatteh, thanks for taking the time to have a peek at my SB and share the encouragement. I very much appreciate it. To be recognized by artists such as yourself who work hard, and study and as evidenced here in your SB have shown awesome progression is very inspirational to me. I've been here before and mentioned then but from page one to this most recent page, you have advanced yourself so well it's amazing. I expect you'll continue to rise. And I wish you all the best along the way. I lack educational art speak to give you a solid critique, but I like it and see you have come to grasp color variation, value and anatomy so much more then in the beginning. Great job! Of course you'll always be working to master those! Keep grinding!

[vatteh]

I STRaY I - thanks for the kind words. really appreciate it man.

photo studies

[kikindaface]

hey dude, you're avatar of kusanagi attracted me, and i'm not disappointed, really nice paintings ! keep it up !!

[kikindaface]

ooh, forgot to help you ! the only thing that i have to say is that you should spend more time on the drawing before adding colors, most of peoples tend to quickly learn how to draw and going directly into painting, but when you take good artists and great kikass artists, the only difference is that those guys have incredible drawing skills ! So if you wanna ba great at painting, be great at drawing !!!!

[vatteh]

kikindaface - that's a really good point about being good with your drawing skills. And I have to admit that I barley draw in my sketchbook these days. Thanks for the useful reminder.

some CA challenge stuff

[Pete Hidalgo]

Wow! Awesome book. I probably have nor right to crit anything but I think it is something others may agree with. Compared to your reference drawings (still lifes or photo ) The drawings you do from imagination seem to be missing that attention to detail. Maybe not much in these last two but your attention to the materials in your still lifes you should apply to your drawings from imagination. Try making a "Moodboard" (Collection of reference images for your illustration) Check this page out. There is a mood board a bit down the page. Maybe this will help? http://crimsondaggers.com/forum/thread-1408-page-7.html

[vatteh]

Pete Hidalgo - you are definitely right with me not putting enough detail on my personal stuff as I do my studies. This actually sounds like a good idea. Definitely gonna try it out.

photo studies

[vatteh]

CA & CGHub challenge stuff

The old swamp hermit (CA CHOW)


The Skyrim Dragonborn (CGHub Drawing Jam)