Fudgeloaf's Sketchbook

[fudgeloaf]

Latest updates on last page!

[Sulphur]

Nice start! I like the little texture test picture - definitley very creepy stuff, reminds me of an album cover or something!

Keep it up!

[fudgeloaf]

Hey thanks yeah I do like my creepy characters even if i do overload them with textures haha

[Loathsome]

Welcome to concept art!

I really like the poses. Although I suggest you start drawing people from photos instead of posemaniacs (I guess you used that one) since posemaniacs is pretty stiff.

Be easy with the textures too. Textures should be used gently because if you start putting heavy textures on your images, it's just going to suffer. So be careful with it.

However, keep posting and welcome!

[fudgeloaf]

Damn you got me haha Yeah im a posemaniacs guy I see what you mean by stiff and will try some more photo studies cheers, I dont suppose you know of any site that plays through references like posemaniacs does ? I find it a good way to warm up with a time limit pushing me.

Thanks again

[Loathsome]

Check my sketchbook, I posted all my nude reference images in a zip. I hope it's still up..
I believe they are on the last page.

I also suggest you get the slideshow program Irfanview, it's great for figuredrawing.

[fudgeloaf]

Hey all!

Time to get some more stuff up here. Todays progress was sloow damn distractions and damn battlestar galactica! C and C appreciated.


I'm finding it confusing switching between books of Hogarth/Loomis/Vilppu I think I need to find some kind of middle ground





A couple of quick doodles I did.. Yey for zombie babies!




And lastly heres an oldie I played around with for some uni work, its the first time I used and created a custom brush and set to work like Android after watching one of his tutorials


Will post more sooooon

Mike.

[fudgeloaf]

Another quick dump decided to give a 1 hour speed portrait a go trying to learn some value techniques, it would be amazing if you could tell who it is haha


will probably post more at the end of the day, I think i may even try my luck at the CHOW eek!

[fudgeloaf]

So the rest of the drawings today, only 2 pages but learnt alot in them with less reference and stuff, I also watched quite a few of Vilppu tutorials today to get me going i prefer his way of constructing the human figure to loomis so far.

No reference on the last two. Damn i've got a long way to go...


By the way does anyone know how to change the sketchbook thumbnail that appears for my thread? I realise that having a study page as my image isn't the most eye catching thing to represent this little journey of mine.

Sleep now.

[glaudarien]

Hey thanks for posting over at my sketchbook, in order to change your sketchbool thumbnail you simple need to change the image that you have attached to your first post as that is what it chooses. As for your anatomy studies i think your definitly on the right path, your proportions are quite good in most of the studies and the different parts of the body are roughly the right shapes where the muscles are. However i think if you want to improve quicker you should focus on different parts of the body and study them hard, then move onto the next for example study hands for 2 days then study legs for 2 days etc etc, study the muscle structure and how the joints look and work, this may seem pointless but knowing how everything looks and works beneath the skin will really help you give the right form to everything when you are attampting to do a full body sketch. I hope that helps

[fudgeloaf]

Hey and thanks for stopping by Gladuarien thanks for the help I'll definately get right on the individual studies right away! thanks for the advice and good idea doing it for 2 days and rotating.

Cheers!

[heix33]

Nice to see environment design along with figure studies, I'd recommend you to study everything else also, like vehicle-, costume design, color theory, composition, robots, if you're interested in them, the sooner you start, the better. Also, in my mind, it is pretty useless to do 30 sec gesture studies if you dont know the anatomy, I didnt see any George Bridgman studies, if you dont know who he is, you might want to check out his books, works.
And Hong Ly has some great nudist references on his homepage at characterdesign.com, check my signature.
Keep it up.

[fudgeloaf]

Hey Heix23 thanks for the advice, I do tend to sway towards simple character design and environments but looking at overall studies would probably be a great help actually(although im going to have to force myself to do vehicles erggh). I tried downloading the Bridgman PDF from a reference link here although I have no idea how to open the bloody thing on a mac haha.

Thanks for the great insight and I will be using some of Hong Ly's refs quite a lot it seems

[Lakka]

as someone mentioned, color theory is something that would help you greatly.

For your sketches, I think the lines look good, but you need to work on rednering, maybe try hatching instead of smudging?

Keep up the hard work!

[Lakka]

as someone mentioned, color theory is something that would help you greatly.

For your sketches, I think the lines look good, but you need to work on rednering, maybe try hatching instead of smudging?

Keep up the hard work!

[fudgeloaf]

Hey Lakka, you hit the nail on the head there when it comes to rendering in pencil I have no idea what to do haha i wouldnt even know where to begin when cross hatching to be honest do you know any tuts or teachers I could learn from, this also goes for the colour theory any good books anyone?

Cheers for the advice!

[fudgeloaf]

Okaay progress so far today, I listened to Glaudarien and began individual studies starting with hands, I've always struggled drawing the buggers









Also decided to do a 40 minute study of a movie still from Jarhead, I could have spent more time tightening everything up but I just wanted to see how far I could take a picture in a limited amount of time.. the answer is not very far.


Will probably post more at the end of the day gotta go to work soon!

[krysjez]

I think your pencil drawings have nice line quality to them. Crosshatching/hatching - maybe this post will be useful to you: http://www.conceptart.org/forums/sho...63#post2799763

The basic idea is just to build up the tone with layers. Start off shading with //// strokes then add on with strokes in the opposite direction \\\\, rinse and repeat to get darker. You get better control that way than smudging.

[fudgeloaf]

Ahh great stuff! thanks krysjez and the curved hatching does seem more organic, i'll definitely try my hand at cross hatching. Cheers for the advice

[Sulphur]

Your comment reminded me I had'nt stopped by in a while!
You've already improved! That anatomy stuff is looking great, but most stuff in here is looking pretty sweet

I find hands a bit awkward too but you're definitley doing good. One thing I would say though is that they look a bit skeletal and witchy because the bones are exaggerated, but they'd look great if that was the look you were going for.

Keep up the good stuff, I'll be checking back!

[fudgeloaf]

@Sulphur Hey thanks for the revisit too hehe, I do like the whole skeletal hands thing but it wasn't intentional, whoops! Maybe its because they were Hogarth studies he loves to exaggerate haha. Thanks for the compliments theyre really motivating me, and your gorilla made me want to study bananas

About 1 hour each, really fun and calming somehow.

I got hungry.


More updates soon!

[fudgeloaf]

Being at home is THE biggest distraction ever! so only managed to get another 1 hour speed painting done. I'm getting used to blending colour etc and started to look at reflections more but I always seem to fall short when it comes to detailing pictures, any tips anyone ?

[Mincx]

Finally my account is working! I tried sending them an email using 'Laydeh' but I got an 'Error failed message' reply. I even clicked the adress straight from the activation email. FAIL.

And then for this account the activation email was for Photography Mob... Then it wouldn't acknowledge I was logged in until the 3rd time I did it.

Not impressed.

I am impressed with your apple cup. Don't be afraid to use harder brushes and shade!

[emilylorange]

What's holding you back in terms of realism is your color choices. You're shading with black or darker tones of the same color, which is flattening out the compositions. Your eye is probably seeing this, but your mind is overriding it, thinking logically 'Bananas are yellow and nothing else'.

Really sit and take a look at how colors are interacting in the objects you choose.

[fudgeloaf]

@Mincx- Yey glad you finally got one now make a sketchbook and draw some tuuubes

@EmilyOrange- Thanks for the advice I see what you mean with my work being flat I'll definitely try and get a wider range of colours in my picture next time! Cheers.

Will post more soon

[fudgeloaf]

Still at home so no scanned images just crappy quality photos :<, will try some more digital stuff later though.

[lennon]

Well, it's good to see that your reading Vilppu (probably Hoggart too?). The stuff looks really promesing. Try to focus as much as you can, specialy in the drawing. It's too common to start jumping from one subject to the other, but in reality the best idea is to try to practice few things for a very long time. I would recomend hands, bodies and heads. I wouldn't worry about color and value at the moment, if you get to understand the shapes in 3d very well, it will be very easy to put value.
So, if an advice could be given, try to think a lot in your method of constructing any shape. The 3d primitives in perspective should be to you easier than to breathe.
-When practicing the figure, I found that is best at the beggining to make stick men (you may copy the poses from pictures or wathever), but try to grab the proportions well. Get used to know how long does the arm goes, and so on. Fill three or two pages, no more than that. Once you sort of get use to that (a clean gesture), fill the stick figures with boxes and cyllinders. Draw them completly, don't fake them. Also, try to make them of the right thickness. Proportion in perspective is the most dificult thing of the figure, so try to get the proportions right. It may take more than one would expect. The gesture lines will pretty quilckly become more like a tiny mark, used for indicating mostly joints.
Learning how to put this guidelines and how to use them is key. Be honest with your self and use only what is helping you. Try to integrate the techniques in your everyday life (the drawings that you make for fun).
Never finish much the drawings (that will make you waste a lot of time that you could use making other sketches), but eventualy try to see if your proportions are correct.
One good thing is to take any picture of a full body in PS, and draw on top, in a different layer your constructing system over the body. The same lines that you sketch for the hips, and stuff like that. If you make a few of those, then you can constantly compare with the ones that you've made and check what looks better in the real ones. Look how your system should look like. When working with this constucting approaches, it's very easy to miss the figure that is suposed to be inside the boxes and get a mistake in the propotions.
Another good idea is to try to think what are all the posibilities of poses, and try to make them all, and know them all.
If for example you are studing the face, separate in FRONT-3/4-SIDE. And once you got a good practice of this ones, try to make this free from above, and then try them from below. In other words, try to be methodical.
In any case, you're doing very good. I know that most of my advices you already knew, but it's good to refresh them. At the end, I can tell you that there is no advice that can overcame the need of practice. You really have to fill a million pages. The faster you start filling them, the sooner you'll get good.
Once that the human figure is mastered there's little left regarding technique, so don't be afraid of spending some serious time in learning it. You need to get a puppet in your head, a puppet that you can draw in every position and understand it's 3d aspects to the last degree. Once that you have that puppet in your head, you can forget about the figure, because you can draw it in a few seconds.
Even if it take 3 years, you have antropomorphic figures cooked for the rest of your life (animals and monsters pretty much too, and even perspective get's a lot easier).

Fill free to ask me to critize your drawings at any time, or ask me for any sort of advice I could give.

[Pixie Trick]

lennon just gave you some freaking good advice which every person on this site (including me.... oh dear.. )should listen too.

Anywhooo... keep at those studies. Remember to look for differences in colour on the same object. Just like your cup above reflects its colour onto the table, the table and apple are going to be reflecting back at it at least a little. Keep at it mate!

[Metal Fingers]

Thanks for stopping by my sketchbook man, checked out that guys work, it was RAD. yea, lennon said a lot of what I was going too. Really pay attention to the construction of each of your studies, try to wrap around the 'why' of everything you do, why is this light bouncing here? why does this muscle bulge there when I draw the arm in this position? Only other thing I could recommend is while you are doing your studies, do stuff from imagination that directly applies to what you've been studying. It'll help cement what you were thinking about and really force you to consciously remember what you are drawing.

[fudgeloaf]

WOW what a birthday present that was! Huge thanks Lennon as well as Metal Fingers and Pixie Trick, I wasn't expecting this at all when I woke up haha. I'll get right on all your guys advice right away almost done my hand studies now will upload them later today maybe if im not too drunk. Thanks again!