I draw with crayons!

[Forrest_I]

diegofloor thanks bud, and yeah I know I'm going to apply these studies I did later on. I need to do that more :p

Hand studies of Donato Giancola



Hope I can finish this one, I like how it's turning out so far

[Forrest_I]

Couple finished pieces and the start on my CHOW #300 submission.

[p sage]

You have gotten better, obviously. Was it all the yelling? Couldn't have been hard work

In the Ninja/Pirate one... the light on the ninja's face...wr..ap? (the kerchief on the face)... it feels flat because of the rim light and no bounce light... and the chin seems kinda pointy. Other than that some of the edges that you might expect to be firm or hard (top of knife, etc) are pretty soft... the pirate's braids are fairly formless too.

Sorry if you weren't looking for a crit... maybe next time I'LL JUST YELL

[Forrest_I]

>>STREAMING<<

[Forrest_I]

I've never ranted in my entire life on a subject so strong as religion but after drinking a lot of vodka and watching my favorite documentary "Religulous" I feel I now have the bravery to talk about my beliefs on religion. I feel this world has developed in to a more open minded community and by sharing my thoughts and personal beliefs on here I won't insult anyone, but instead instill new possible ideas into their minds and possibly leave whoever reads this more open minded about religion.

I'm not going to come out saying I'm the second coming of christ, don't worry I'm not insane. In fact I find myself being more sane then other people who are much more religious then I. Some background info on me before we begin... I was raised Jewish, since the age of 7 or so I have been going to temple on most friday nights and dreadfully waking up on the occasional saturday mornings as well. Once I turned 13 and became Bar-Mitzvah'd I was given the chance by my parents to stop going to temple and choose for myself what I would like to believe in life. I believed my parents however I still will find myself being forced to go to the rare volunteer work needed at my local temple and will be praying at the dinner table every friday night. But my huge question to ask everyone is "why?" Why go through so much trouble for religion? For blind faith in a deity you've never seen, never met, never heard, never found any personal or non-personal proof or evidence to it actually existing?

I'm not against any religions personally. Besides extremists, there is no need to over think your own religious beliefs if they give you written pages on what you should only be believing. I grew up with a few friends who shared their different beliefs, some were agnostic as I am, some atheist, some Jewish, but most being catholic or christian. I've seen my share of beliefs, I've gone to all of their church's, heard all of their prayers, seen what they've seen since they've grown up and still... still I don't understand this struggle that humanity puts itself through by believing in the equivalent of a Harry Potter book.

You know what I think? Religion was made for people to base themselves on common sense. Those who would think otherwise; think that murder could be just or that rape is acceptable would have a just path to follow and realize "Oh wait, this book here says not to do that so I'll listen." You make the storyteller be God and you're good to go on an a-okay society. But no, you can't control people that easily, there will always be people against others beliefs. And instead of accepting those people, you threaten them, tease them, make them feel pressured to join. Growing up as a Jew I've been told straight to my face that my religion is wrong and I felt angry, like an outcast. I wanted to beat the shit out of the smug guy in front of me who was no more intelligent about the spiritual afterlife then I was.

Fuck it I say. Fuck all of it. Live a good life, live a just life, but not because some man named Jesus or Horus or even God tells you to. Live it because you know it's right, because you know what to do. You don't need a higher power to beat anything in your life, the higher power is your own ego. You just need the fucking balls to realize it.

The reason I'm posting this in my sketchbook isn't because it's my only friend either, it's because art is what gave me this sort of concept. Art made me enjoy life, see how special and fucking amazing it is. How beautiful the littlest things can be such as the twinge in the corner of the mouth of a face or the simple twisting of a persons arm. The world is a beautiful fascinating place and I just wish everyone could see that without resorting to viewing it blindly through some sort of religion. People only need themselves, us as artists should know how powerful self motivation and motivation through community can be, but we get this way without religion. We get this way through ourselves, through willpower. Whether willpower was given to us by God or through evolution, that shouldn't fucking matter, just live life, draw life, enjoy life.

I don't know all of you artists out there but I want to let all of you know that no matter where you want to go in life, I believe you can do it. All of us can do it. I'm not totally stubborn about this topic either, I hope all of you share your beliefs with me and we can talk like responsible people in community about it. I'd love to hear other peoples beliefs about this topic.

And to simplify this entire rant into one quote, honestly I'd use the saying used by the great David Spade in the movie "Joe Dirt"; "Life's a garden, dig it."

(I personally apologize for any grammar mistakes in the rant like I said I am quite drunk and am going to bed peacefully now knowing people know how I feel about this topic, I'm considering making this a weekly thing. Nezt week's topic... Politics )



Here's some work on my CHOW #300 I'll get some MMA studies done for tomorrow as well

[warburton]

hey man, it's kind of interesting that i saw one of your earier pieces in this sketchbook, the serial killer chow piece and realised thats when i really first joined this community. I just thought to myself 'i wonder how this dudes doing now?' and skipped to the last page. It's prity amazing how far you've come and your dedication to this point.I think keep going the way you are and you'll do great. Keep up the great work man, and i wish you he best of luck for the future.
Also that latest chow piece is looking great, can't wait to see it finished

[p sage]

Interesting thoughts on religion.

Similar thoughts to mine, though maybe more cynical actually... religion is a means for government to be able to predict the behavior of its subjects. If you know how a mass of people are likely to react to something, it's much easier to do what you want to do as a person in power.

Anyhow... keep working. The yelling at you so we can see your improvement is over... you seem to be doing fine through hard work instead.

[Forrest_I]

warburton Thanks so much that was the last CHOW I entered too ha

p sage thanks p sage

CHOW progress and some studies

[RyanSCole]

Nice rant haha! You have some cool stuff going on here, and you have also improved a lot since I last saw your sketchbook. Keep it up!

[kevin_]

i see some definite improvement since page one! great job, keep it up!

[Forrest_I]

Thanks RyanSCole and kevin_

HUGE ART DUMP!




























Excuse the blur effect, i did this earlier today and didn't save the psd. file, I have know idea how it got so blurry xD

[Forrest_I]

So I've always liked hearing stories about how different artists got started and why they started trying to become a better artist. Some I've read have been very inspirational, Dave Rapoza, Jason Manley, Brad Rigney, they have some pretty interesting stories on how they got started. So I figure I'll post mine and hopefully some of you viewers will share theres too.

I remember I wanted to be an artist since I was born, I went into kindergarten knowing my career would involve art. For awhile it was cartoonist and then there was comic artist and so on. Well growing up all the way up till 6th grade I was the shit at art in my schools. I was widely known among my class members that I was top artist and no one better fuck with my pencils. Then around 7th grade an old friend of mine from 3rd grade shows up again, him and I both loved to draw. Only problem was now he was better then me, and a lot of people knew it. I, being very jealous and competitive when it comes to my artistic skills, would not stand for it!

What really made me snap was when I lost a drawing contest to him that year after I had entered my greatest creation to date (back then). After that I started to ask myself, how do artists get so good. I'd been drawing and doodling in an anime style ever since 1st grade, but I always loved the artwork in games like Magic: The Gathering. I looked at the cards and thought, "Good god how could people get this good?" One artist that stuck out to me among the others was none other then Todd Lockwood. I searched him up on Google after seeing a few of his pieces and saw how incredible his work was. And after drawing his card art over and over I decided there had to be a better way to learn. That's when I discovered... Dah da da daaaah! Conceptart.org!

Back then when I made my sketchbook I was the wee age of 14 years old. I had just started getting into the idea of digital art after discovering how it was done. And unfortunately... I still thought I was the shit -.-

Soon after I'd created my sketchbook I realized how much I sucked. This quickly became realized after looking at Miles Johnston's and Sam Carr's sketchbooks. I realized what I needed to do from then on and got cracking on anatomy. At this time I still didn't think I was better then my friend from before and I was not satisfied. I gloated about me studying to build up the competitive fire. I was retarded.

The next four years I was off and on with how much I studied, it was about the end of Junior year of high school when I really started sticking to constant studying. And as time grew so did my studying habits, I now attempt to post every single day (when I don't forget ) and am studying more then ever before. I still have that competitiveness when it comes to my art, but I find it helpful and motivational. It keeps me wanting to get better, luckily I'm no longer egotistical, I can't go anywhere on the internet without finding someone who is better then me.

Anyone else wanna share how they got started?

Self portrait and figures

[tabletoppler]

oh wow, it's amazing to see you draw so much. your work ethic is insane! For some of your painting practice it was getting hard to differentiate between the two on the first look. good job and keep going o:!

[Forrest_I]

Thanks Tabletoppler

Couple new illustrations and a commission

[CarlSpringer]

Ahh it been a long time since Ive been in CA

what got me into art was literally GAMES when i was younger i wanted to be a game designer and create my own characters. And then one day i found out people actually draw for game WTF. I was always into fantasy RPGs And Warcraft always my biggest inspiration i loved the art. giant armour and wanted to work for them. But the i discoverd speed painting and saw a video of Jason Chan he blew my mind. People actually paint them magic cards and DnD book WTF. He lead me to concept art org i discovered Wes Burt and his pencil work and character designs. Since then i wanted to do character design.

My friend reads comics And introduced me to awesome covers by Marko Djurdjevic. And Ive LOVED HIS WORK SINCE.

2 YEARS later i gave up playing games started drawing more and loving fantasy way more

NOW I LOVE JESPER EJSING WAYNE REYNOLDS AND TODD LOCKWOOD!!

[Forrest_I]

Nice story Carl, I'm really inspired by video games too, Warcraft helped fuel a lot of my motivation back in the day.

New junk, not happy, must study more! >

[Forrest_I]

>>Streaming<<

[Forrest_I]

>>Streaming!<<

[Forrest_I]

Here's some stuff from my streams and the start on a piece I'm doing for the monthly challenge on the ImagineFX forums. My stuff always looks shitty when it's rough and early on like this xD

[Forrest_I]

Figures for today, I'd show progress of my Sacred Ritual piece but my Mac is going super slow right now and I'm worried it'll crash if I try to even open up Photoshop.

[Forrest_I]

>>STREAMING<<

[Forrest_I]

>>STREAM<<

[WRappiii]

Awesome work, man! You've got a great work ethic

[Forrest_I]

Thanks WRappiii

Figures warm up and progress on the Sacred Ritual piece (Still lots of things wrong with it -.-). Tomorrow I'll have more awesomeness!

[Forrest_I]

studies!!!!

[Murderotic]

Holy Shoethrghfghfg! Your last post is amaaaaaazing. I lovez it. Well done!
I also love that "sacrafise"-picture, reminds me of Amnesia: The Dark Descent
"Paint the man, cut the lines, PAINT THE MAN, CUT THE LINES!"

[Forrest_I]

Thanks Murderotic

I plan on doing 100 more figures tomorrow and finishing a piece I've been working on for awhile now. However, for now I present!........ GARBAGE!

[Forrest_I]

>>STREAMING!<<

[Forrest_I]

>>STREAMING<<

[Forrest_I]

Doodles and figures! I don't just doodle enough so I'm going to start trying to make time for less seriousness in my artwork Forgot how nice it was to do stuff with no consequences