the cow reboots.

[HolyBovine]

Its a start. hand poses from posemaniacs.

[HolyBovine]

Back to basics, back to hands. A whole lot more on the way... hope the steam doesn't run out this time. Posemaniacs again.

[HolyBovine]

Boredom at work translates to.... doodles in moments of boredom...

[GabrielVerdon]

Great stuff! I see you are also doing hands

[HolyBovine]

Gabriel> Yup, and all the other basics that I've forgotten from years of doing kiddy work. Time to get them all back =)

Rough environment concept doodle at work, deep forest statue setting.

[HolyBovine]

Referenced portrait in PS, 15 minutes? I think.

[Diarum]

That last picture looks really good, you really got the structure pretty well. I would say branch out and do more anatomy and still life. That should and will help you a lot with rendering and getting proportion right.

[HolyBovine]

Thanks diarum. Been to a few life drawing sessions recently, will be posting those up soon. =)

Bored work time painting. I'm weak with colours, so please help me along here? =)

[ilmenhin]

Hello! I actually like the colours in the last posted art but I think the tone on her hand doesn't match the base tone of her face- looks rather odd imho.

Also- nice hand studies there!

[PermaN00b]

hey bovine, thanks for stopping by my sb! i like the hands, i've done a rack of hands myself. i need to do about a million more... keep working on the coloring. it doesn't look bad and in a couple of areas it looks really good. ie: the left shoulder in the last girls sweater looks pretty nice. i like the colors u used there as well. btw, blows my mind that u did that portrait in 15 min. well done.

[LAL]

hey！i really like these hands,its good! keep it !

[HolyBovine]

ilmenhim> Glad you liked the colours, had a lot of help from friends though. All part of the learning process. haha. gloves colours changing soon, taking a break frm this piece for now.

Permanoob> thanks. Its amazing what you can produce in times of extreme irritation... LOL. More hands and figures and life drawing needed too.

LAL> thanks!

figure drawings in PS at work, frm posemaniacs.

[HolyBovine]

Life drawings, from life drawing sessions the last mth or so.

[HolyBovine]

hmm. not sure if I can call these portraits, since likeness is pretty much hit and miss... anyway, drawings from various OIC Portrait Days i've attended so far. Some I like personally, some I don't... Should really colour some of these for practice...

[Istmin52]

What do you do at work? You must have some free time on your hands to draw at least. I think for your paintings in the beginning, your colors feel a bit washed out and your color seems to be local. You should mix your colors more and not be afraid. I also think the paintings feel a bit flat. Try doing some more value studies. I really like your hand drawings. Keep it up.

[Yina]

keep it up! i like the women figure studies.

[PermaN00b]

HolyBovine
WOW, your most recent stuff is amazing. the figure drawings and gesture drawings are fluid and look great. your anatomy is really starting to get pretty tight. also, the caricatures are full of win. seeing stuff like this really helps to keep me motivated. I agree with Istmin52 you are definitely to the point where you can be working on more value. once you start getting a better handle on that and rendering some of this line work your stuff is really gonna start to pop. i am excited to see the journey!

[HolyBovine]

More figures...

[HolyBovine]

I realised that I skipped the obligatory intro... LOL. Alright, here goes. I'm a CG artist, been in the industry for 3 years, worked mostly as a BG artist for various studios. For the most part, children's productions: first company I worked in is an animation studio producing Cartoon Network style series (does the name Scrawl Studios ring a bell? Nanoboy? Hur hur...), second company was a new startup that didn't go too well, current company is an advertising firm branching out into games; I work in the game department, full time on a single edutainment title.

Starting a sketchbook here to reignite that spark that has, unfortunately, fizzled out over time. A new start, if you will.

Istmin52> I do have free time for drawing, and I intend to put it to good use, like I should have done all along but didn't... =)

Perm> thanks for the compliments! I really should get out of my comfort zone though... like istmin pointed out. More colour and value studies.

Some scans frm my current sketchbook.

[cgaddict]

Great updates. I really dig your hand studies as well as how you handle the figure in your anatomy studies. Keep posting!

[Istmin52]

Thanks for stopping by my sketchbook. Your last post is looking great. Your anatomy is really coming along.

[B u r l]

great start! i particularly like the confidence of the lines in the hand and figure studies

[HolyBovine]

ah... the neglect. I apologise. XD

The 2 vikings started off from scribbles after watching How to train your dragon. The 2nd one's not coloured as yet, wanted to nail down values before that since the first coloured one turned out pretty crap.

The Dragon piece *ok... probably not really recognisable as a dragon per se..* is a theme with a couple of other friends. Quite happy with how that turned out =)

not sure if I should post that here actually since its completed work... but anyway XD

[Erotopia]

fucking beautiful hand sketches and gestures. i need to gesture more. >< thanks for reminding me of that!!

[HolyBovine]

Ero> Thanks, I need to gesture more as well =)

Ancient, ruined hallroom with a phoenix as the resident guardian spirit. Sketch for a theme with a couple of friends.

[Riley Stark]

There is some really nice stuff in here - your figure work is really nice. (Especially the stuff in post #13. Great work in there!)

I know you said you thought were weak with colors, but I rather think the colors in post #8 look pretty good. The colors in your in the piece with the girl finding the little dragon are looking somewhat harsh, however. But I don't necessarily think it's your colors so much as your lighting, though..

You've got a bright flame in front of her, but she's sort of looking down at it - her face should be lit from underneath, I think, since she's not really tilting her face down to look at it, just her eyes are looking down. And, because it's a tiny flame, I don't think it would be casting quite as much light as it currently is (even with bounce light). You've then got a rim lighting (which I'm going to assume is from something like the moon given the color of it?) that's the same intensity/brightness as the flame that's right next to her. It's sort of making everything look like it's competing for attention. If you flip the image to black and white it becomes a lot more obvious. I did a super-quick paint over to show you how changing your lighting slightly could help you out and create a more intimate feeling in the piece.

I added rim lights on the underside features of the face, got rid of your backlighting with the (moon?) and made the focal point the dragon and the girl, since that's where the story is. She's sort of discovering him under the leaf - if you make the lighting paramount there, then it's almost like we're peeking in on a private moment with her.

As the piece is originally, it looks like the lighting from behind her is stronger (the arm on our right - the rim light there looks brighter than most of the highlights on her front, where the flame is - it pulls your attention away from the dragon, since the arm is directly over him. The minute you brighten up the foreground and darken the background, then it looks like the arm is being lit from the front and it sort of frames the dragon in rather than competing with him for attention.

Now, I flipped all these to black and white because black and white can actually help you with your colors. If you check your values, it's usually a good indicator for what you're doing/should be doing with your colors. It makes it easier to add in your colors for your lights and for your shadows and things will generally feel more cohesive if your values are settled well. (Now, I mean this in a general sort of way.. Understanding color theory still helps, obviously, so you know what colors tend to work together and which one's don't.)

I think you have the potential for some really great storytelling (in this piece especially and in some of your environments), just remember to keep things simple. (Like the piece with the girl with the green hair - the lighting is simple, the colors have a nice contrast and are well-placed.. it's easy to view and get a feel of what's going on. Your latest environment works well, too - you know exactly where you're supposed to be looking right from the get-go!). The more complicated you make things, the more complicated things become for your viewer, too.

Keep up the great work! ^_^

[Diarum]

How come you have not updated in a while come on it won't hurt....unless you make it O.o

[Sonia Leticia]

Sweet studies Like all the hands and figures. Those robotic illustrations are adorable too

[emilylorange]

Your studies are excellent. They're very accurate and the line quality in some of them is quite nice. Keep up the good work!

For your imaginative pieces, I would like the echo the above poster in suggesting you work on your values. What might help you is a couple of simple, easy still lifes, like an egg on a sheet with a bright lightsource (stick to fairly even and solid colors). I'm not suggesting a masterpiece that you have to spend hours on, just some study to see how the lighting works.

What you'll find is shadows aren't always a gradient from light to dark. What gives an object the feeling of 3d form is often the lightest highlights touch the darkest shadows, and everything in between. Once you understand this in a basic sense, move on to looking at photos of real people (posemaniacs is a great resource, but doesn't really cover lighting) and see how shadows accentuate the face and body.

[HolyBovine]

intrinsik> wow...thanks for the paintover and the detailed critique, really helpful information! That's precisely what I intended to convey with this piece: girl makes a surprise discovery and shares a really private moment with this little creature *who's not too happy about the intrusion!* I'll keep your advice in mind and try to apply it.. =)

diarum> coming.. coming. :p

Sonia> thanks, need to do more of these though.. never enough practice.

emily> yup, really need to do some colour still life studies... its hit home on me that I'd save a lot more time doing them then trying to do full colour illustrations with a half assed colour sense...

I'm not sure if I should be posting finished work here, but here's some stuff I've done: the phoenix piece which i posted on earlier, and 2 girls I painted as requests from others. Let the flaming begin :p