Sketchy Pages

[Black Spot]

Massive improvement all round. Love the ugly kid at the beach. See, that ball and chain keeping you working has paid off. How does it feel to go up a level?

[look]

Nice octopus, they look quite delicious. That girl in orange mecha suit looks good, though I think her hands and feet are a little small.

[tobbA]

BS: Thanks. Yeah. I actually feel like I keep getting better... Just gotta hope I can keep that going. That schoolism course sure helped as well.

Look: Thanks. I'll check the hand and feet... It's a bit hard to meassure proportions with this girl though. It might just be the suit that makes it look that way.

Was at the "Northern Light Workshop" in Stockholm this weekend and had the oportunity to meet and paint with Petar Meseldzija, Justin Gerard and Jesper Ejsing Had a great time, though I didn't sleep a lot thanks to noisy room mates at the hostel...

First one is the painting I did there. I'm fairly happy with it, but I feel like I need to keep doing more of these If I'm gonna get decent with the watercolors...

Then what I believe is the final version of Samus... Some figure studies (about 15-30mins) + anatomy from photos.

[dierat]

I think the hand for sure is too small, and not because she's in a suit. Just imagine that hand laid flat over her face - how big is it? And keep in mind that the hand itself is covered and would be smaller than the actual hand in the image.

Love the figure studies, especially the first one.

[Black Spot]

The trouble with water colours is that there's no real undo. You need to plan the shadows out very early on. The shadows around his legs is not consistent with the rest f the picture.

At least the girl in the suit's face isn't as plastic and Lego like as her armour.

[tobbA]

Well. Plastic and laquered metal looks pretty much the same, except plastic is generally a bit more matte and less reflective as far as I can tell. So I'd say that's a good thing... I did change the size of the hands and feet though, and cleaned it up a bit.

[tobbA]

Guinea pig study from a photo :3

And a couple of pokemon interpretations for a thing at another forum...

[Black Spot]

Using the technique of fur on the guinea pig on the pokeman would be better. Go on - make it really fluffy.

[Lightship69]

Make it like this!!!!



It's So FLUFFY!!


sorry mate couldn't resist it.

[tobbA]

Maaaybe. X) I kinda like the oily furry look... Fits more with the monster in question, I think.

I feel a bit bad for not updating this place in a while... Guess I felt I had better things to do, or something...

Anyway, here's some more stuff, both recent and not so very recent

[Psychobuddy]

Nice work on that last concept, it looks really solid, and the light in that same post is so good. K eep it up.

[Black Spot]

Love the watercolours as ever - it really is your medium. Metal is looking more like metal - I think the shaper edges help.

[tobbA]

Thanks

I started doing a couple of pages for the POW challenge before the site went down, so these are the two first pages (out of 4)





And I started taking a course at Rebecca Guays SmArtSchool, with Donato Giancola, and it's been pretty cool so far

Just at the sketch stage for the first assignment at the moment.

[kevin_]

great sb! really liking your pencils!

[Black Spot]

Not sure that her not slipping off the cliff is that believable, but the rest of it is fine. Now I want to know what's in the egg - a bit too small for a giant turtle.

[tobbA]

Thanks

Hmm. Yeah. I was a bit unsure about the slipping part... I figured it could work, but perhaps not.

Here's an update on the turtle... still quite a bit to do but it's getting somewhere.

(I also noticed the forum now resizes images automatically... That's interesting.)

[Lightship69]

Hi matey

Just my two cents but I feel the giant turtle should be lower in the water due to his massive size and bulk, just ath ought mate is all.

Thats the only crit I got at the moment, so I would say crack on and give us some more of your brilliance !! lol

all the best matey.

P.s. thanks for the SB visit and the paintjob that was good of you to take the time, thanks again.

[tobbA]

Thanks for stopping by

And yeah... I though of that. But then no one mentioned it during the critiques in class, so I figured it might be ok. And also, one of the crits I got from Donato was to make the fins visible, so the head and shell wouldn't be too much of a repeating shape or something... But of course, you may be right.

Here's another update:

[tobbA]

Some more work done...

[Hiddles]

wow your art is amazing @___@

[tobbA]

Thank you

Trying to get the water right...



And also did an alien dude for the daily sketch group

[Black Spot]

Nice alien. I think the turtle could be on a reef, maybe a couple of rocks peeping out from the water close by would emphasise that point. Keep on refining it.

[tobbA]

Yeah... I decided to not worry too much about the floating thing. I think it could work still. At this point I'm mostly worried about making it too busy or something...



Here are also two rough sketches for the next assignment. Not really sure about which direction to go with.

[dierat]

Hey tobbA, that turtle piece is coming along really well. And taking a class with Donato Giancola, that sounds seriously cool!

For crits, at this point I'm mainly thinking that your lighting could be more prominent. Based on the blue sky in the back and the bright blue water, I assume they're receiving some pretty bright sunlight, but you've given the piece pretty soft shadows, as if the light's coming from a diffuse, overcast sky. Some nice hard cast shadows (under the turtle's shell for example) and a bump in contrast could really help to make the forms feel solid and the lighting more intense. I think you could also use a bit more color variation - for example the turtle seems to be the same color all over with no difference between the planes that are facing the sun, the sky, or the water. (Unless of course you do want the piece to have an overcast sky, in which case you could extend the clouds in the sky and make the water more of a grey, silvery color.)

The sketches for your next assignment look pretty sweet; I like the second one in particular. The first feels a little dull because it's kind of a generic portrait; I don't feel like you're saying anything with that piece. But the second one has a lot of potential for narrative with the dynamic between the two characters and the contrast in their expressions. I would consider moving the girl's face more to the right a touch because she feels kinda squashed, unless you're going for an eclipse metaphor, in which case I would recommend trying to push that angle even further so it's immediately recognizable.

[tobbA]

Thanks. Yeah, I agree about the portraits... But I also felt like I didn't know what I'd do with the second one, so I tried to make a bit of a variation on the first instead. I might save the second one for later, who knows...



Also working some more on the turtle. Trying to figure out how to make the patterns on his back work better...

[tobbA]

Reworking this... Trying to figure out how to paint spaceships.

[tobbA]

Another update...

[Lightship69]

If you are lloking for spaceship inspiration look up chriss foss, Jim Burns, Peter elson or peter jones there are some really good ref and inspirations in amongst that lot.

Hope that helps, Its not looking to bad as it is mate I would push it and see what happens personally, but enjoy the pics anyway, all the best mate.

[Black Spot]

I agree with dierat, choose a light source and make it work for every object, person etc. Currently the light is all over the place and giving conflicting messages.

[tobbA]

Black Spot: Hmm... The only place I can see where the lighting might be sort of ambiguos is on the boat? At the back there maybe there shouldn't be so much shadow. Otherwise the idea is that the light is coming from in front at the upper right, except for the rocks in the foreground which are meant to be in shadow and solely lit by the color sky... I guess the fact that I've been using too much grey on the light side might make it look a bit like it's overcast. I tried to push the color contrasts a bit in the final version. I could probably rework it even more, but I think I'm calling it done for now at least.

Lightship: Thanks. Yeah. I think I'm fairly happy with the ship design at this point. I found some cool stuff online for inspiration. I might check those other guys out though.





And also a random super man doodle...