Ixius's Sketchbook - Draw to learn! (NSFW)

[Jai Kamat]

Baudolino: Thanks! I'm experimenting to try to find out a way to make them even more "painting-like"
Fishbed: haha thanks!
blazinwolf: Thanks
george&guo: very appreciated
Jasper_: Thanks bro. You're the gold standard!!
Metal Fingers: thanks a lot
NickyBeats: dude, that's friggin nuts! What are the odds. Maybe our minds are tied together somehow haha
wreck: Painting the model digitally is fantastic! It's really refreshing to actually paint a model from life. Totally worth carrying all my crap around lol

Small update here, 2 WIP's for class (anatomy illustration WIP and a fantasy illustration WIP), and a Sargent master study for fun.

Thanks for looking everyone!

[Jasper_]

Yeah man! That guy with the armor is looking fantastic now, the muted colors on it are working great. It's making me excited. lol.

[samthemule]

great work, you have earned another subscriber

[JakehC]

damn dude...

[sone_one]

kick ass work sir. very effective painting. +*

[gregoo23]

Inspiring Sketchbook!
I really like your painterly style!

[NickyBeats]

love the anatomy study! very nice! love how you seperated certain muscle groups into a more orangy color tone too.

[p sage]

You must be the fastest 'improver' in the history of the internets

Seriously... beginning of last year you were still having issues with proportion, and now you're kicking 17 kinds of ass.

Sub & stars. Thanks for the updates and inspiration.

[Wheeljack18]

Great Work here my man. The portrait in #163 just blew my mind! Love it!

[Metal Fingers]

looking good man!

[Jai Kamat]

Metal Fingers: Thanks bro!
Wheeljack18: thanks a lot!
p sage: wow, I'm honored! Thanks so much. I hope to improve lots more!
NickyBeats: Thanks for stopping by again man
gregoo23: Thanks!
sone_one: thanks
Aryeh:
samthemule: thanks a lot!!
Jasper_: Thanks as always bro

Ok, I have a lot of stuff to post but it's mostly traditional. Since I'm too lazy to scan them now I'll just update with a few quick figure paintings from class today, hope you guys like them. Personally I think the second one is the most successful of the three.

Thanks for looking!

[Metal Fingers]

you sexy man beast you.

[NickyBeats]

oh i like the top one best!

[Jai Kamat]

Metal Fingers: Haha, thanks for the support as always

NickyBeats: Thanks! Different strokes for different folks I guess (no pun intended haha!) Nice avatar change too man!

Alright, I'm lame as usual. Just another figure painting update. The model was fantastic! These were quick, about 20 minutes each. Drawing and proportions was unusually hard for me today, and I think it's because I've gotten no sleep this past night doing schoolwork and such. Ah well. I like the last one the best because I feel that I perceived the greens in the flesh tones better, no more over-saturated oranges or browns. I wish it wasn't my last life painting of the day!

Thanks for looking!

[Jasper_]

Nice work man! Glen appears to get way more attractive models for his class than we have in open figure drawing...I have a sketchbook filled with naked old men.

[NickyBeats]

nice forms, the brushstrokes are coming along man. very minimal, but effective. keep it moving bro!

[RaphaelLuebke]

really great figure studies!
ilove the idea of shaded muscle anatomy studies at the top of this page

[OldOmen]

I am in LOVE with all of your works, your figures are just so beautiful. This one especially captivates me: http://www.conceptart.org/forums/att...1&d=1292993021

[Jai Kamat]

OldOmen: Thanks so much! I liked that drawing as well

xbert: Thanks a lot

Nickybeats: Thanks man, really appreciate it. I'm trying to minimize my rendering and really think about what exactly I'm doing. It's tough and mind-draining but I think it will definitely help me long term.

Jasper_: Thanks bro, and yeah, Glen's good about that stuff. Come by the studio sometime! I miss our chats haha.

ART DUMP! I got around to scanning most of my stuff from my main sketchbook, but here are some (mostly) recent drawings. There are some random studies from life thrown in there, but they're pretty crappy this time around. With my drawings I'm really trying to analyze my ref (either life, other art, or photos) before I put pencil to paper to understand how the figure or object flows. Just thinking more I guess. I was always under the false impression that art was about "muscle memory"; that my hand somehow did most of the work, but I'm finding that it's completely the opposite. I'm really eager to see where this state of mind takes me.

The painted portrait of the bearded dude, a fellow studio-mate, is my first oil painting. However, there is some digital editing in there, but just to clean up sketchbook seams and washed out scanner color. I love oil and the way it flows. I think I might be falling in love with the stuff. It's really demanding though, but I like the challenge (no undo button!) Guess I'll have to see where it takes me

Thanks for looking, I'll post more soon!

[NickyBeats]

oh my good god almighty! i love your linework!!!!! your figure studies are always amazing man, and is that chick with the big tits from life?! why do i always get stuck with the fat sweaty fisherman, who insist on doing upside down crab walks right in front of my face?? (true story...)

[walnut]

Thank you very much for that update, it's wonderful to watch. The clarity and sharpness of the line in all those drawings is a thing of beauty for me again thanks for sharing. One question: how much of the figure stuff is from ref and how much from imagination?

[p sage]

Hey man nice dump

walnut brings up a nice question... I saw your response in his thread and thought it was interesting.

It's hard to say with black & white certainty anything about art philosophy (especially for me, still feeling very n00b)... but there's a feeling floating out there that a person will only ever be able to pull shapes, ideas, compositions, etc from ref... and that virtually all art should be done from ref. The idea is that you look a tons of ref, copy tons of things, and file it away somewhere in your memory so that it emerges in your work later. Somehow this is the only way the brain can make convincing images later.

Don't know, but I tend to believe that once you have an idea of how to build 3D form in your mind, and make the lighting convincing, that a lot of the need for ref goes away. That's sort of the way I'm leaning with my studies, and initial results for me are positive.

But it's a flimsy philosophy; there are so many exceptions to this, rules about that, and fifty different ways of thinking about it that maybe it doesn't even make sense to think about it.

Anywho... good thoughts.

[Kvenh]

You are a beast!

I LOVE your lines and brushwork, crazy! Are the anatomy studies in your moleskine reffed or from imagination? Either way, they're juicy I bet it's fun painting models digitally - I wish I had the opportunity.

Thanks for stopping by

[Jai Kamat]

NickyBeats: Haha, thanks man! I can remember if I answered you or not, but no, the big breasted lady isn't done from life, it was done after a Jeremy Lipking painting. That guy is BOSS.

walnut: Thanks walnut!!

Kvenh: Hey, I appreciate it! Most of the stuff I do is reffed, but that's just personal preference Painting models digitally is so fun, hopefully you can get out and get the opportunity to do it!

p sage: Thanks for the kind words, I appreciate it! Ok, let me clarify myself, I feel I may have come across as a bit opinionated, and I fully agree with you that in art, and especially art philosophy, that there are multiple shades of gray. I should say to start with that I've really only been seriously doing art for a year or so, which is a very short time, and therefore I feel that I don't have the knowledge to pull a full work from my head, which is something I aspire to do Perhaps I am also not qualified to talk about these things.

Let me say right away that when I say use ref, I DON'T mean copy a photo precisely. That's not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about understanding. When I use ref I try to internalize the forms (not the 2D shapes, but the perceived 3D forms) and then translate them in my mind, and what occurs is the drawing or painting. At least, I try as best I can haha. I would not say that I'm a slave to ref, and I think can draw a pretty convincing human from memory, but nothing (to me) beats drawing the individuality and spirit of a unique, existing thing, which is something that I think can be difficult to do without something to look at. I mean, it seems cliche to me to bring this up, but to paint his figures, Bouguereau used to study each of them relentlessly from life, and paint multiple studies of them before even thinking about moving to a final. His understanding of a very specific individual was internalized, and when he moved to the final it was all the better for him to have such extensive knowledge of his subject matter.

Don't get me wrong here! I think that drawing totally from imagination is a very powerful way to test your knowledge and understanding! But I would never use my mind alone for a portfolio or client piece, and I've only learned that recently to be honest. My opinions will probably change, they always do

Likewise however, I feel that reference in today's art world means "Oh look, I copied this photo so I'm awesome". Reference to me means studying your subject really closely, multiple times, to really internalize it. Perhaps so much so that you can complete the final image without the use of ref. But at that point, ref becomes just what it is called, reference, not "OH GOD if I don't have my reference I'm lost foreverrrrrr" And p sage, you're right. To say that anyone can only pull shapes, compositions, and forms ONLY from ref is an ignorant statement.

I hope I made myself more clear...I'm not the best speaker and I definitely don't want to come off as dickish or elitist, so please tell me if I am. I totally agree with what you're saying too though p sage. I just feel like every artist, whether they are amazing at whatever, can only stand to benefit from using some kind of reference.

One more thing, I feel like too many people think that ref is a one shot deal, like, you take a picture, and draw it, and that's the final image. That idea is only a very modern concept, I think. Sargent, Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Leyendecker, Rockwell, all those guys did MASSIVE amounts of studying from life or ref of very specific things to be able to create their artwork. For example, Leyendecker would pose a model and draw and PAINT that model from life like 10 times until he was satisfied with his ability to understand their forms, and only then would he move to the final image. I'm pretty sure after doing that he could paint it out of his head with relative ease.

TLDR; To me, reference is an aid, not a substitute

Wow, I don't think I've ever written that much in a long while. My fingers hurt

[drey101]

can i steal your sketchbook and just hug it to death? Pretty plz lol anyway love your sketches they're soo clean and have a lot of form in them I wanna learn how to do that >.< allright only countless more hours of practice untill i can do something like that =/ better start now lol

[sin eater]

It was a real pleasure going through your sketchbook. Your line quality is amazing. I feel very very inspired right now. I am gonna draw the crap outta my sketchbook today haha. Thank you for sharing. Keep doing what you are . This is really inspiring.

[bpic]

OMG bookmarked. I love your studies and lines and I cannot believe how much progress you've made since page one. I couldn't agree more with what you were saying about using refs up top. I kind of fell into the copying habit because of art school... and then went in to doing mostly stuff from imagination. Thanks for further inspiration for doing more (much needed) studies. Also in my opinion it really seems easy to recognize the difference between copying and interpreting especially because of photographic distortions (mainly proportions, edges, and value/color.)

Anyway, awesome stuff and ill visit again soon.

[Ludic]

Holy shit, those anatomy studies frighten me. You're pencils are sooo tasty.

Subscribed!

[FUSHANDCHUPS]

Dude that last digital head study is bangin' - those moleskins are really nice as well.

[Aondê]

excellent studies
I like the way you put the colors in the paintings