Racquel's Sketches and WIPs

[Racquel]

So I'm finally de-lurking. Here's the latest.

This one's practice on blending my sketch layer in with the painting layer.



And onto anatomy practice.





And Fanart



Conner!!! Or, er Superboy. Work in progress.


And Nick and Jaime from Sarah Rees Brennan's Demon's Lexicon. I this series. This is probably not going to be the last of them you see in this sketchbook.



And random preliminary sketches for digital paintings I may or may not finish.

[Racquel]

I started out with a super vague notion of a witch with cyberpunk tendencies and proceeded to sketch out some outfits, like so:



Then I decided to expand on it, like this:



And, true to my contrary nature, I ended up working on this instead:



*sighs*

[Racquel]

My brother was feeling under the weather, and therefore he was the perfect ...victim....uh model 'cause he couldn't escape.

Then he got fidgety, and I got bored. Thus this unfinished thing:

[asiJa]

Hi Racquel,
Something which may help you > Try to use bigger resolution and harder brushes even of quick paintings, it would be easier to make contour less clumsy. It looks like detail (actually it is) but if you have clear conturs you can easily see the importaint points (anatomy, perspective, composition) and also you have better feeling and motivation to fine it.
The same about the lines - try to clean it - do it courageous, sure and clean. Line itself has it's value - just like the curly hairs on your sketchs, thats very nice. If you do unsure dashing, it just hide where the actual contur should be, and you can't learn where to put it, when you in any case put it everythere.

Sketch of Your brother looks fine. It's always trouble (for me) when it comes to pupil in eyes but try to do so, it always completly change expression. Also the mounth and chin looks a bit to in front or to right. Still, nice reflection and skin surface.

[Racquel]

Thanks so much for the input, asiJa. Especially about the hard brush and contuours. I tend to "guesstimate" which results in random, unclean lines. I'm going to try to work on that today.

Eyes are always the last thing for me to draw, 'cause I suck at them. LOL. And that pretty much bites, because you're right: they control the final expression.

*makes grabby hands at more refs and books*

[Racquel]

So I worked on some digital stuff the last couple of days. I get bored quickly, so I think I'm going to work on some more anatomy next.

Pink Haired girls rule. Mae (Demon's Lexicon):
This:

graduated to this:


And my WIP:

[Racquel]

Random scans from my sketchbook:


Hands practice with one random foot:


Tried Painter out again. Still hate it:


Light study:


Random:


The following is a result of listening to the Inception Original Soundtrack over and over and over. And Arthur's awesomeness.


I think I'll work on this one a bit further and finish it.

[Aresa]

Hello! Nice start with your sketchbook! Your studies are coming along great and I'm liking the paintings. So far, I think that you might be able to benefit from pushing the values more in your paintings though. You seem subtle with the shading, so try and add and extra layer for depth. I notice that you avoid eyes too, haha. If your not comfortable with the eyes, try and do a study on them. See how they work, what shapes they're made of, etc. That's all I really have so far. Keep it up and hope to see more from you!

[Racquel]

Thanks Aresa! I'll definitely try to work on the values and eyes. Urgh, especially the eyes. lol.

[Racquel]

I had jury duty for the last three days, so I decided to do some stealth!sketching of my fellow jurors.


Hands:



Eyes. I'm still looking for a way to simplify them without going too anime-ish.


Ah, perspective. How you frustrate me!


Random scans:



More TDL/TDC stuff, 'cause it makes me happy. *cuddles wee!Nick and wee!Alan*

[Racquel]

Head/Light study:

[Racquel]

I've been in a learning phase lately, so I decided to take advantage of the CA 50% sale and purchase a couple of video tutorials. I also whipped out my ridiculous long list of art tutorials. Anyway most of my sketches have been crap or notes for the most part lately.





Perspective slays me every.effing.time. But the way this dude teaches it gives me some hope.


Fun stuff:

[Racquel]

I've been been stuck in lurker-land for awhile. Here's an update.
Box exercises a la Mark Chong. I still suck at them.



























Current WIP

[Racquel]

Ah, junior high school came back to me and hit me with this fun one.

Suckit

[Racquel]

Just made the upgrade to a Wacom tablet. *fondly retires Genius tablet*

Fun, random thing I did to test out the tablet's settings and shortcuts in Photoshop. It came out looking like the sun-deprived spawn of Edward Cullen and Micheal Jackson.


And a WIP. Maybe I'll even finish this one.

[Racquel]

Just playing around with an ink brush pen.




Pencil


And Alan.


I like this last one very much. I think I might try to explore it further and see where I can take the style. It seems that I've been in search of a "style" for so long, and I've been jumping all over the place style-wise.

[Racquel]

3am and I've got class at 10am.

[Racquel]

Follow up.

[Racquel]

....with color this time.

[jramauri]

It seems you are the right track, just keep practicing. One thing I think you should do is always start with a colored BG. You are starting in white canvas now, and letting it do the lights for you... and this is not good, your paintings are turning pale because this. I'm saying this because of my own experience.

Altough I'm far from a master level, in my SB there are some step by steps of my paintings, as well as my brush settings. Maybe they could be useful for you on the stage you are now. Keep it up, girl, I'm liking your progress

[Racquel]

Thanks, jramauri!
I hadn't even realized that was what I was doing (re:the background). I think it's just something I let carry over from sketching with paper and pencil without really thinking about. But I now that I think on it, I do have issues controlling the shapes of light. Thanks for the input. I'll definitely experiment with darker BG with that in mind.

[Racquel]

The Attack of the Long Necks. Can't seem to avoid 'em.

[Lintire]

Love the style that you've got going here - seems really bouncy, fun, and still manages to go ahead and have its own little point of realism (or grace, whatever substitutes for realism in a picture).
You seem to be really concentrating on drawing feminine figures, so I'd just say to go ahead and keep practicing. It's coming along really well, and I wish you the best of luck.

[Racquel]

@Lintire: Thanks!
Update

Scans


Notes a la Chira's Expression Tutorial

[Racquel]

[Racquel]

Took a break from people/portraits and.....




.....I'm going back to people-drawing.

[Racquel]

Anyways, here are some scans from my sketchbook. I'm finally giving the ink brush pen a workout.

[Racquel]

That last month of classes kicked my ass with back-to-back research papers, but I've been trying to actively draw again. Feels as if there's no progress, as usual, but I'm hitting the books again this summer.



Stealthy sketches on the MTA.


Mixed observation sketches and imagination sketches

My current WIP.

[KT]

Good start, nice to see that your prolific. I would check out loomis' drawing the head and hands, it's a great book especially since I'm seeing a lot of portrait and head drawings from you. It's being re-printed but there are pdf's of it until then. Keep working on anatomy and basic construction, it'll get you far.

[Racquel]

Thank for the advice, KT! I'd actually forgotten that I had a copy of that very book, and I hadn't really sat down to explore it. Guess that's the downside of getting every book imaginable. I start to forget about 'em. lol.



And oodles of doodles.