Trails of Crumpled Paper and Chewed-up Pencil Stubs~

[midknight523]

good studies

[smuli]

Congrats for the tattoo internship! The facial details in oils look great, I really like the skin tones. Your hand sketches look great and the practice has surely paid off. On heads though, sometimes in twisted ankles the features look slightly distorted. Watch out for shortening the face in vertical direction especially. Would be great to see you doing to heads what you did to hands, loads of quicker sketches focusing on the structure but it's just a suggestion, I know you're busy. Keep up the good work!

[Ceinwen Fang]

this is a glorious sketchbook! You really know how to put weight into forms. As far as I can tell some of your proportions are skewing a little, but most of the time not, and practice will eliminate that as it already seems to be doing. Great examples of using good quality anatomy studies and applying it to more abstract drawings and stuff. I will have to stalk you now :] muchos inspiration.

[Jessibelle]

@midknight523: thanks
@smuli: Thanks man, but i didn't end up getting it :') ahh well, back to the drawing board (no pun intended.) now that you mention it, i do actually have a load of trouble with placement and structure on heads... hadn't realised how much till you pointed it out, haha. s'a real good suggestion, so if i don't get time beforehand it's definately the first thing im'a do when i hit the easter holidays!
@Ceinwen Fang: haha dam , thankyou! yeah, proportions are a bitch to get a grasp of x) im just hoping they get better with practice too.

Back on schedule
another boring update this week, im afraid...

figure practice, sorry they're a bit all over the place.




college stuff - on the final project, thank god. just 92 days left till freedom! -these are done from observation at the museum, which is actually really fun to do





and a screencap study in acrylics. trying to get a hang of the lighting i'm using in the current painting (whiiiiich will hopefully be posted next week. i'm taking the day off college to finish it tomorrow, so it should be.)


keep truckin' people!

[smuli]

Sorry, I misunderstood what you wrote. Better luck next time!

I love how structural the anatomy sketches look!

[Kerah]

Hello Jessibelle, it's about time I subbed to your SB
Thanks for the continuous support and the the great advice. I'll see how can I increase the tonal range in my works, as suggested, get more studies down

I don't have a lot of great advice for you, perhaps you don't need any. But I'll keep an eye open for your future updates

Cheerios!

[Jessibelle]

@Smuli: haha its okay, i figured thankyou!

@Kerah: aha a sub? thankyou!! and i can always use advice, haha.

Finally finished that piece i uploaded a sketch for-


photo's real dark, sorry about that. not like that irl.
lots and lots of things wrong with it, but considering it's my first acrylic personal piece (in full colour, anyways) I guess i'm okay with it. next one will be better though.
another photo cause, idk, kinda shows it better and shows scale and stuff.


the rest from here on in is this weeks college stuff - some digital some traditional, one from life and the rest from reference. not had time for much else, im afraid :/

[Jessibelle]

update is three days late D: i could mention how ive been really rundown, passing out at college and home, having trouble waking up and a near constant headache... but thats no excuse really. ;D
I feel almost back to normal now anyways, so normal transmissions should resume next sunday

mostly college work again... 75 days till freedom! -







yeah, i suck at landscapes/environments. I'm finding out its more about abstract shapes and forms and patterns, and... im not that great with abstract, heheh.

all the personal work for this week - a crappy little joker sketch and some swallow tattoo designs i did as a favour for a friend

[Ceinwen Fang]

lovely swallows - and those lonely planet referenced portraits have incredibly well handled and delicate tones, really lifelike studies, with a much finer touch than some of the others, is it because its watercolour as opposed to pencils and pastel, I wonder? Keep it up

[Jessibelle]

@Ceinwen Fang: thankyou! yeah it was done in gouache; im still very heavy handed with acrylics and pastels and most things really, but subtle colour changes are much easier to get with watercolour/gouache.

so, i've already typed this once... must have pressed preview instead of submit ¬¬

only one day late this week! i'm getting better, haha. teeny tiny update since my posts are usually filled out with college work lately, and most of my college work this week has involved writing... annotations, statement of intent, personal statement, dissertation. gah i hate college. just 70 days left and counting!!

some environment thumbnails for college... sorry for the crappy phone camera. if someone could help me choose a thumbnail off the second sheet to develop, that would be amazing it's supposed to be a sacrificial-temple sorta thing.



and a study that is currently kicking my ass. shiny, slimy things are so hard!

[viki oh]

eyyyy I haven't been here in a while! I love your skull paintings!!!! They have a ton of form and really nice lighting ;0; Your improving and it's nice to see! ALSO. you've gotten better at figures, I love them all

[poetry man]

Hey Jessibelle,

you have a strong degree of studying! what is your ultimate aspiration in art? I think once purpose is clear, then priority kicks in. I totally understand what you mean when you were going to school and felt like you were just "rushing" to hand in crap just to pass exams you didn't really care about- although in the art scene it's not about exams, but more-so final projects.

Either way, I totally understand, because in the same sense, rushing to get good marks for final projects you're not totally interested in creates some kind of weak atmosphere on the artist's part. I felt the same way. I dropped out of animation not too long ago- mostly because I realized I didn't want to be an "actual" animator. (Which is essentially what the course is training you for!). I then kicked into illustration, but I wasn't feeling that course either. Some might say I'm stubborn,

but I "sinceerely" feel the need for self-study, as oppose to handing in (what seems to me) rushed, and unworthily crafted assignments. I know they are supposed to be directed towards the portfolio, but still-- for me, having a lack of purpose creates misguidance and apathy. So I can at least somewhat relate to what experience you were going through at college.

My purpose is a little more clear now, so there IS at least some prioritizing going on, but no worries! all of that will work itself out in God's time!

I just came here to encourage you! keep sticking at it! find out what kind of mark or position you need to take with this art thing! and just do you!

peace!

- "A person's a person, no matter how small"- Horton hears a who

[Jessibelle]

@viki oh: ahh thankyou! it doesn't feel like i'm improving at all atm (feels like i'm getting worse, if anything) so that was good to hear

@poetry man: woah man, thanks for taking the time out to write all that! :') t'was very encouraging. it's good to know i'm not the only one who feels that disconnection with school work... the big fear for me is that that feeling will continue if i end up working in the industry, so i'm just hoping that it's only the whole formal education thing i have an issue with, heh. I always say my goal is to be a working professional illustrator or concept artist... but tbh, i think my ultimate career goal is just to have a fulfilling art job that i love and that pays the bills without the need for me to have a supplimentary income from elsewhere. but thankyou! i'm glad you know where you're going, so you keep at it too


----
okay, so this would have been on time if CA hadnt been a douche and deleted my post last night. i really couldnt be bothered retyping it all, i wanted to go to bed. x)

college work (63 days left!)...





and wip of a little exercise...


till next week guys! hope you lot are getting the benefit of sunshine too!

[sharks]

hey thanks for visiting my sketchbook!
You have some really nice figure studies here. I particularly like the portraits in post 188. keep it up!

[Jessibelle]

@sharks: Thank you!

easter holidays = free time! I'm so buzzed to art now, my god. i'm even realising how much i missed anatomy studies, im enjoying doing them, what is this.
since i do have extra time, gonna try for extra uploads - maybe twice a week for the next two weeks.

and 55 days till i can focus completely on my personal art :')

keeping up with college work...





finished last weeks wip:


managed to get some study time in - following smuli's suggestion did some work on head structure in forshortening, more work needed though i think. and some quick'n'dirty hogarth.



and hitting the sketchbook again... figured out a new pencil technique, i forgot how fun plain ol' pencil could be

see you guys soon!

[Kerah]

Jessibelle, those thumbnails of yours are extremely delicious!
Are you counting days to your graduation?

One more thing, the upper head in this one is just brilliant.
Cheers!

[Jessibelle]

@Kerah: ahh, thank you! well, the days till i finish college, yeah. there isnt really a graduation, we just finish

so... early post, as promised

college work - id really appreciate some input on the costume design thumbs, which works best? (she's supposed to be a priestess's apprentice in a like, sacrificial tribal cult, if thats any help.)



and study catch up! just speeding through some hogarth hands, hoping i can get something to stick before the easter holidays end. i've heard mixed things about hogarths teaching method, but personally i love the way he breaks things down into shapes and planes find it pretty easy to grasp, even if it is exaggerated.





hopefully i'll have some personal work to show on sunday, working on the sketch now

[Jessibelle]

so, this is my second upload of the week, as promised! (idk if i'll be able to make it two updates next week... busier than expected. gonna damn well try though.)

college work... working up a digi final for the apprentice character. (need to study the hell out of legs, asap!!) pushing colours and lighting more than usual, feels like i know what im doing more, but not really. should'a used more reference.


some more hand studies... hogarth and then his theory applied to photo-ref



and some personal work... sketch and colour thumbs. shameless fan art, ha /geekery. challenging myself with a bunch of stuff on this one...
think i'm gonna go with the top left colour scheme... torn between that and the bottom right. thoughts?



hope y'all having a good easter! or y'anno, just a good day in general

[smuli]

Those hand studies look gorgeous! I like how you applied them to photo studies, in some the fingers look slightly too bent but otherwise the construction looks good in all of them. Nice to see you sketched some tilted head studies too. The heads on the plane studies look slightly squished but the photo reffed ones look good.

As others have said, nice work on the lively skin tones on the watercolor portraits! I find watercolors to be a good medium for learning how light behaves because you can make small adjustments with thin layers which I think pushes your eye to be more demanding with color accuracy.

On this character, I like the skin tones, pose and anatomy in general, but the arm and legs look a bit too thick to the left side. Textured background makes it difficult but you could try get into the habit of painting background/negative spaces onto the foreground when necessary, rather than erasing the layer. Just a matter of taste of course but it gives a more painterly look than layers with corrected edges.

From the color thumbnails on the last post, my favorites are the two bottom ones because they show prospect of a good mood. On the top left one, the darker values are so close to each other that it's hard to make out the figures and on the top right one, the light spots look a bit distracting but it could be a start of a nice daylight scene.

Keep them coming!

[Jessibelle]

@smuli: ahh, thanks for taking the time to write out that comment/those crits, it's much appreciated.
yeah, i know what you mean about some of the hand studies looking off, most of them don't look right to me either; gonna keep grinding till they do and i plan to start some from imagination when i get more of the hang of the photo reffed ones.
yeah, i should really do studies in watercolours/gouache more... that's on the list of things to do after i finish college! i see what you mean about the character now... i was trying to make her seem more muscled but don't think i pulled it off. should have used more ref. also, im not really sure what you mean, in the bit about negative space/bg+fg/layers? and i already started before i read this, on the first colour thumb... :/ im possibly scrapping the piece though.
thanks again!!

didnt make two updates this week :/ didnt have a single free day... and it's back to college tomorrow.
only 41 days left now!

moar hand studies!!





moar college work!

finished the digi from the last


finished underpainting for a portrait of the same character. you also get the bonus of seeing where it was painted! idk why. aha, such a mess.


and the progress of the last sketch... but i think i'm probably gonna leave it here. forgot how much i hate using colour pencil on w/c paper, and just kinda lost enthusiasm for it...

[smuli]

About the painting negative spaces too thing, what I meant was an approach of painting everything on a single layer rather than keeping the subject on a different layer and cleaning the edges. I find it helps think about the negative spaces more and that could help out with things like getting the width of limbs right (and give a more painterly look because with traditional mediums, you can't refine layer edges with an eraser). Sorry if I made it sound like a critique, it's more like just another thing to consider.

Good hand studies and I like your workspace with all the pictures, I should take a leaf out of your book at that.

[Kerah]

I agree with Smuli, your workspace looks just awesome. A nice and cosy feeling, isn't it?
I have enjoyed looking at your hand studies, but you repeatedly seem to make the thumb smaller/thinner than what I feel it should look like (maybe my inner thumb compass is off?), especially in the last and first pages of the hands you did - Are some of those from imagination? Just curious, because the second page of hands looks really great in comparison.
Also good job on the acrylic!
Cheerio!

[Jessibelle]

@smuli: ahh okay. now I get it thanks for clarifying that. I'm giving this little piece of advice a whirl atm, seems to be working much better - I'll upload the picture next week, should be done by then.
@kerah: Thankyou! None of the hands are from imagination, they're alternately hogarth and photoref - are you referring to the ones copied from hogarth? he deliberately stylises the fingers/thumb to show where the knuckles lie... I'll try and keep an eye on proportions anyways, I know it's a weakness of mine. Thanks again!

I did update last week, I swear! Then I come back now and the post isnt here... Oh, CA. :/

so you can have last weeks update anything I have lying around Ill just add to next weeks post.

usual hand jams...








college work. phone cameras are crappy, the big oil painting looks better irl.




just over 26 days!!

[Jessibelle]

holding off on studies and personal work till i get this college work done. 20 days!! and then i can just focus completely on my work personally :')
so all you guys get is a big dump of this weeks college work for the next week or three... sorry about that. ^^;

[Jessibelle]

so, sunday. update day. another update of just college work, i'm afraid... *sigh* should have all my college work finished by the end of next week though...! fingers crossed, haha.

some costume concepts for a warrior character, another oil portrait, the process and a w.i.p portrait that's currently sitting in college. i know the last one is riddled with flaws and mistakes, gonna try and fix them up a bit, but atm i'm just churning this stuff out to get it over with.

[Jessibelle]

Finally finished ALL of my college work... finally D: imsohappy.
i'm gonna increase activity on here very soon, maybe not this week as its still pretty busy (tying up loose ends at college, writing evalutions, artist statements, preparing for the exhibition, 3 full days at work, a trip into manchester, doctors appointments, and hopefully i'll finally get some time to chill...); but by next week definitely.

last of the college work:



some quick and crappy face studies; done in green acrylic paint since i have loads of cheap stuff i wanna get rid of. had to desaturate it to make it read remotely well. i just miss studying, properly learning, so goddamn much. im so rustyy


and some minecraft shoes that have been sitting around forever, that i finally managed to finish as a thankyou for someone.

[Jessibelle]

Screw taking the week off, getting with the regular updates now!

Getting back to arting what I want/feel I need to art feeels soooo goood.

Bridgeman/photo-reffed legs. My anatomy needs an almighty hammering, starting now.



self portrait from life.


aaaand some scribbles and plans from a very slow sunday shift at work.


happy happy happy!

[SamC]

Yea you'd better kill it!

[Kerah]

Jess, great update!
Really digging your self portrait, those delicious colors! Oh, teach me great master (no really, teach me how you did it).
Cheers!
Keep the work flowing

[Jessibelle]

@SamC: Haha, hell yeah!
@Kerah: Thankyou! Ahh there isn't anything to teach really, I didn't use special brushes or layer modes or anything I could tell you, just a matter of observation and practice You should do some - they're good for you!

Keeping this ball rolling.
Would have uploaded this last night but I could'nt get my scanner to work. (Turns out I'd plugged the wrong usb cable into my laptop, lmao.)

Something I painted for the timeline cover thing on facebook, so I could link that back to my deviant art gallery.


Legs! legslegslegs



aaand a crappy doodle sketchbook page. Really need to invest in a digital camera!


Today is my last long day at work till next friday (i've been in for full days wednesday, friday and today) so hopefully you'll be hearing more from me next week!