Charmer's Thread! PRACTICE!

**Charmer** · May 4th, 2011, 09:17 PM

Thank you very much Becka! I'm doing whatever I can to improve!

Here's my self portrait from today. ~1 1/4 hour. I suck at digital portrait painting.

And a quickly drawn landscape. Shadows & light are easier for me now, the face studies are a bit noticeable if you ask me.

**Charmer** · May 5th, 2011, 06:27 AM

Quick thumbs. Made myself an action which automaticly makes a thumbnail document for more work in a shorter amount of time.

**.empyrean.** · May 5th, 2011, 09:38 AM

Boy, you're effort is crazy. 15 Pages in one year, wow.
A tip for your landscapes: Think in fore- middle- and background.
It's there in your thumbs but focus more on it.

**Danny_K** · May 5th, 2011, 12:57 PM

at this point I would not worry about speed and getting more work in less time, actually I would recommend as I have before do everything real slow and really analyze every study you do, learn as much as you can once you have learned it enough times that it comes to you really easly then the subconscious will take over and you will draw the thing you've learned naturally and then more studies and so on, don't rush many beginning artists doing the mistake of rushing and trying to get work when they barely know the fundamentals, dont be one of those get everything right the first time, Algenpflegers sketchbook is a perfect example of doing things the right way, I go there from time to time to get inspired and to realize I'm not working hard enough.

**kingkostas** · May 5th, 2011, 03:44 PM

Nice progress mate

. I would suggest doing some tonal training with simple objects either traditionaly or with digital media. Render some sphere, cube and cylinder. If you do it great there you will do everything else more easily.
I would say that eyes should not appear like flat white areas but thats only because you have to render it as a sphere rather than a flat "eye-shape"
You are doing good progress so keep up studying
(also think with limited value range and stay true to it [ for example use a shadow tone, a half-tone, and a light tone] that will make you focus on finding them and drawing their right shape.

keep it up

**Charmer** · May 5th, 2011, 07:44 PM

@ Empyrean: Thanks mate. Yes I really need to get a clearer border between background, mids and the foreground. It was just a couple of fast sketches after reading some Loomis stuff and so... next time it will be better.

@Danny_K: Thank you, I do lots of studies for about 2 hours. Do you mean really long studying like sittin' down a week in front of a portrait? I also love Algenpfleger's SB, it's so full of hard work. Sometimes maybe a bit too much without the right goals. Let me say this a bit better: He could have done more final pieces of art with studies needed for that - applied after he learned. I need to be more disciplinated to do that. Hope I'll get that.

@Kingkostas: Thank you very much for your comment, I'm on basics right now, doing lots of boxes, cubes etc. But mostly only for warmup. Also lines, waved lines, straight lines without a ruler etc.
I really need to do more still life studies of that stuff, you are so right. That's what is on my "ToDo" List in Art, what I have to learn.

Thank you all in any way, I'm going to tear my fears of art dowwwwwwn.

**Icecold** · May 8th, 2011, 10:32 AM

Man get some confidence, that self portrait is not that bad, i'd say it's good considering how much there is ahead of you. BELIEVE in yourself! :]

I always try to rememmber this sentence " The only difference, between succesfull artist and a fresh one, is thet the first one has a million more bad drawings" things will come with time, just have the faith.

Cheers Flo.

**Charmer** · May 8th, 2011, 03:20 PM

@Icecold: Hey Paul, what`s up man? Thanks for your comment. Comments like those really help me (and I think alot of other guys) to keep the drive straight forward. Currently I'm doing some stuff for my art portfolio which I need for the college. I hope it'll work. There wouldn't be anything better to me than studying design.

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I'd like to have some pretty good critiques from everybody for my art portfolio. Do you have some Ideas in what I am really good at and what I shouldn't put into? I need to show 10-15 works, doesn't matter if pencil, digital, watercolour or whatever. But I think the professors want to see more traditional stuff so I will do something digital but only two or three pieces I think. And what they want most, is something conceptual. They want to know, HOW I work and where my ideas are from. Where my sources of inspiration are, how my brainstorming works and what my strenghs are.

My thoughts about what to put into the map:

1 Still Life in pencil
1 Still Life in Photoshop/Painter
1 Portrait in Digtal
1 Portrait in Traditional
1 piece of conceptual thumbs
1 piece Masterstudy in pencil
1 scencery, environment, figure or whatever in 3D (I never did that before! )
2-3 Photographs

Here the thoughts what to have as 'guideline' for the concept:

Learn to live:
you need to accept everything in you life. differences between everything like man and women, you and your parents, special persons and really standardized (simple) persons, time and pressure etc.

the way is the goal:
you can NEVER be perfect but you can try everyday to get one step forward which makes you daily a bit more satisfied with your life and everything in it.

Hope you like the ideas or have some more for me. I'm pretty much not sure what's good and what's not.

I need to have the portfolio ready in about three weeks and I have every day at least 8 hours of time. So it is definitely possible to get it done.

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Now to my update. I drew a bit more and with a selfmade custom brush pretty rough with only pressure sensitivity set to brush thickness and flow. 100 percent opacity and pretty hard edges.

And some better done landscape stuff. For warmup, about 30 minutes.
I'm going to draw a bit more today. Daily sketch group maybe. We'll see.

Edit: I've added my torso/pelvis study from today.

**Charmer** · May 9th, 2011, 08:11 PM

I only show you guys the sphere because I think I'm too dumb to get that darker shade in it like it is in the right. So the left one is painted, the right one is divided in some greytones (easier to "see" and "understand").

The landscape was my first idea when I saw the newest theme for CHoW (Guardian of Atlantis). I have some sketches on paper but I'll scan or draw/paint them into the computer tomorrow. Wanna make my first serious to CHoW because I think the learning process is as high as you can't beat yourself with only single studies, sketches and doodlin' around something. Took about 2 hours from the basic idea to some random landscape sketches to five million miles of brush-o-ramic digital color, Haha.

**Charmer** · May 11th, 2011, 07:38 PM

Update from today.
I'm still working on the Guardian of Atlantis piece.
Pretty quick self portrait, done in about 15 minutes. Just blocking in.

**Nemome** · May 12th, 2011, 09:11 AM

Hey trap!

Nice paintings you got in here.
Try to do more pencil drawings. Your digitals are at the moment better than your pencil stuff.
Remember to do still lifes and all this fundamental work

Greetings, Valoo

**Charmer** · May 12th, 2011, 08:41 PM

daily update. I did two sketches of the atlantis piece. I think I'll take that one with the fatso

**Nelka** · May 13th, 2011, 10:57 AM

Hey there guy. I really like your environmental thumbnails. That's the next thing I'm gonna work on after a refresher on figure. Also, 15 pages, wow..

Anyway, cool stuff with your CHOW entry thing, but be careful of the assumption that a muscular character is stocky. Keep an eye on the bone structure, and how the muscle attaches to it, otherwise you risk that 'overly wide' look. Looking forward to seeing the final, that environment looks good!
Also with your portraits, try do some more studies on constructing the head. Like that loomis stuff. Someone suggested I do that again recently, and it really helps. 'Cause it's all well and good to draw separate elements, but having them all together is just as important. And even if you've done it already, try it again, and apply it in different ways.

Not sure what to say about the charizard... umm... w00t?

PS: Thanks for checking out my sketchbook :3

**Charmer** · May 15th, 2011, 07:49 PM

My first CHoW Piece, the Guardian of Atlantis. ChoW #244.
And my first Thunderdome 1 hour piece. Here it is.

**Charmer** · May 16th, 2011, 09:17 PM

My daily update. Feel like I have improved a lot on quick figure poses. Did some pieces before a figure study and some after. After it was so much easier for me to draw better figures in a shorter amount of time.

Two rough Sketches for CHoW #245:Jack the Ripper.
Watched 'From Hell' today and a few days ago I watched Clash of the Titans for the second time. I freaking love that movie! Did some pretty fast sketches while I watched CoTT.

**Nelka** · May 17th, 2011, 06:37 AM

Hey good to see you've started on your Jack the Ripper thing. Hopefully this time, you'll remember the timezone difference

I like how atmospheric you got parts of your Atlantis entry, but I still think you need some work on the figure. Even if it is a creature, it's a bit too frog-like.
Glad you're doing structural studies, but you're still relying on spheres and circles a bit too much. Have a look at Michael Mentler's threads. It's just to show another approach to constructing that doesn't limit you as much. I hope it's helpful =)

Looking forward to more updates and improvement, keep at it!

**Charmer** · May 18th, 2011, 08:31 PM

hey guys here's my update from yesterday and today. did a lot of self portraits. it's getting better i feel.
edit: first head's perspective is right but that's a photograph and i didn't do more on them all as contrast and white balance.

**Charmer** · May 19th, 2011, 08:38 PM

Another Update. I have some other sketches on paper but they're not worth loading up. Just random thumb sketches.

Portraits, Portraits, Portraits. Get's slightly easier to me now.

**Charmer** · May 22nd, 2011, 07:23 PM

Hey guys!
Here's my update from today. It took about 4 hours because I said I WILL spend more time on studies. I did some studies I needed for this one and of course it's still a WIP piece. Will continue it tomorrow.

I also did a quick improvement of an old still life where I painted my computer mouse. Hope you like it!

**Charmer** · May 23rd, 2011, 11:51 AM

I was more into that piece today. But I don't know why, I am not getting it pretty much better. I have a perspective grid and I told myself to work on the things I like worst in that one just to practice everything, not only what I like and what I am good in.
The thing is that I really don't know what to do now. I want it be done. Did some randomized rock sketches, made a good hard brush for rocks and other edgy things and so on but I feel frustrated with that piece. But my goal is to finish it today or if not possible today tomorrow in the morning. Because tomorrow I want to send my portfolio to the college.

Hope you guys can help me out a bit.
Thanks in any way.

Flo

**Charmer** · May 24th, 2011, 06:48 PM

three more hours on that piece. seems to get a bit better but i think the only thing that really needs to be better is me lol.

**Danny_K** · May 25th, 2011, 12:06 AM

the mouse looks good, the microsoft looks stamped :/ don't cheat do it by hand

cheers!

**Rebecka** · May 25th, 2011, 06:32 PM

So much great stuff you're posting!! Mouse looks very nice! Like the other landscaping sketches and studies! Don't slow down!

**Charmer** · May 26th, 2011, 08:46 PM

Danny_K: Here is your mouse with a handwritten font. Haha. No sense this time but next time I won't type the text but draw it by myself.

Becka: Thank you very much! I won't stop or slow it down, that's a promise. Just had to work on my portfolio I need to apply on the college

The digital one was a quick sketch (completely about 30 minutes I think), where I tried to make it more sharp, not too sharp but sharper than my stuff always is, less blending, more painting! It's the background of a character piece I'll begin with. Not sure in what exactly it turns but let's see.

The stillife (45 minutes) and the Russel Crowe drawing (more than a hour) were drawn when I was watching Gladiator again which is one of my all time favorite movies.

The quick figures are all done in under 30 seconds. The people were moving so I had to hurry up!

Was sitting in the middle of our city on the place in front of the townhall.

**Danny_K** · May 27th, 2011, 02:31 AM

very good, the enviro looks nice, and the mouse is better now

wider value range on the pot would be nice, try to think that there are many shifting values everywhere, you will come to see this as you progress and your eye becomes sharper.

**snatti** · May 27th, 2011, 05:43 AM

hello trap, it's has been a while since my last visit but you have improved much since then i can tell, i am very found of your still life of your mouse , it's looks so real you just want to touch it.

keep pushing my friend!

**Saara_** · May 27th, 2011, 10:54 AM

At first I read the ''Lord of the pens!'' title wrong. Actually, I still do whenever I look at it. Oooh boy.

Anyway.. Nice improvement since post 1. 15 pages from 2010 means that you probably post regularly, which is great. Keep working and you'll get there

.

**Charmer** · May 31st, 2011, 06:58 PM

Danny: thank you. The thing about the bad rendering was, that it was getting dark outside while I drew that one, after I went in my room I finished it by my mind. Theres he mistake from.

snatti: thank you. yes it's been quite a while but this way we see improvement from each other on the first view. I'll keep it on, but you need to keep it up, too

Saara_: hey and thanks

Yeah I try to post continuously but I want about 25 this year so there are about 10 more to go

If you want I am the lord of whatever to think I am. Haha.

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Here's my update:

The apple was a study that took about half an hour I think.

This has been very much more comfortable after the color study I posted, too. I figured out, that the highlights are mostly almost white while the eyedropper takes more black and more saturation when you go down in the values/into the shadows.

The dark portrait is a self portrait fitting to my new nickname which I will keep now. Trap wasn't a good name at all. And as you can see I like color dodge.

Did a sketch for the white mountain piece, he's now a warrior I think. Or a Knight. Whatever, I'll be working on it more the next days.

The last days I did my very first oil and started with the second: a self portrait. But I think I still need reeeeally much practice with that.

Have a good time buddies!
- Flo