Vices Sketchbook

[FinalKnight]

Oh damn, your work is getting better and better! Your progress is very noticeable too, very nice.

You're also drawing and studying almost exactly what I usually study too. It reminds me of my studies.

As long as you keep it up you'll be as good as all of those artists you linked and you'll also be able to add your own personal touch to your work. The amount of drawing you're doing is more than me! So you'll be able to catch up to me, no problem!

I really like the type of Korean art you're into as well, it's halfway between realistic renderings but it's also exaggerated in perspective, proportion, colour, design, and emotion - all the good areas!

[vices]

Lucarky: Thank you sir! I've left many comments for other people telling them I like their girls but hearing someone else say it to me is too cool Keep fighting~

FinalKnight: Damn.. man you know I admire your work intensely and getting a compliment about improving from you is touching
I'm drawing more than you? Aren't you a professional artist though? I always thought with your level of skill that your day job was something art related..




Michael Hampton's human drawing book was easier than I expected to get in Korea and I have very few complaints, but many awesome things to say about it. It very clearly reduces the human muscle structures into blocks that are easy to understand and rotate. It also provides a great way to think about "constructing" the body. More than that, learning those simple forms greatly facilitates learning/memorizing the actual muscles.. Which means I'm now taking another step backwards and learning anatomy again lol

[vices]

I've found that having some kind of tv thing going in the background really helps me focus, even more than music. So I've been running "movie-ified" games on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/user/FinalFan...s?query=xiii-2

FF13, FFX, Metal Gear4 ETC. I haven't wanted to play games myself in ages but these days I'm letting myself be entertained by them again


(And they are a great source of ideas for gestures)

[vices]

I think I need more vitamin D zzzz...

[vices]

inch by inch

[Lucarky]

Hi mate and thank you for looking back to my SB! I alredy said that I love your girls? ;P But seriously, your amount of anatomy studies is incredible, and you really are a great student! Keep on going, I love your style.

[vices]

Lucarky: @_@ thanks man~ I'll keep pushing and you too ^^

[vices]

Plugging and Chugging~

Ito Ogure, author of Air Gear and Tenjou Tenge, started his new Manga Biorg Trinity: http://www.batoto.net/read/_/148489/...1_by_vnceled/1

I loved his other works so I had high expectations about this one..... but.. I have no idea what I read.. the first chapter is crazy.

Which is good I guess!

[vices]

arbitrarily February marks the start of face work again

[vices]

Kilarts style is too awesome~~ http://kilart..

http://google.com.

What the hell??
Conceptart is censoring the Cghub URL?

For shame.

[vices]

Started using the gray again to help highlights pop

I wonder when i'll start doing color? I guess after I feel comfortable with values for ..everything

[vices]

Started doing faces again~ Probably one more month before I start doing color

I find if I fight the urge to move the pen quickly that the result is nicer

[vices]

Some bodybuilders seem to have a bulge between the bicep and tricep, on outside of the arm. It looks good but i'm not sure what muscle it is

I think I need to do some of those basic value sphere/cone things. While I'm blending i'm usually not thinking "this is the rate of light diffusion for this kind of rounded surface" Instead i'm thinking "let's make it nice and smooth, but not too smooth, between the light and dark"

gotta work feet into the study rotation..

[vices]

i'm having trouble understanding how to use lineart.. It feels like I lose so much character when I make a final layer with clean lines

[vices]

Lately i've been wondering about lineart and was hoping there was some kind of discussion about it with different artists explanations about how they use it..

Copying Hyung Tae Kim's picture today made me realize the importance of understanding light refraction so I guess it's time to do those spheres and cylinders with the 8 different kinds of light

[phoenicorn]

Nice sketchbook. Gave you a mention in my art blog http://artfreck.blogspot.co.uk/2013/...spiration.html Hope you don't mind.

[vices]

phoenicorn: I'm floored.. thank you for that honor sir! I'll try to keep it up and make it a sketchbook worth coming back to



Nothing amazing to say.. oh, except these days i'm starting to feel like an artist.. that's cool~

[RV-]

Very nice!! you are working hard, that's cool, keep it up !!

[Morkai]

Dude, you're making awesome progress! That copy of HTK's tinkerbell (I just assume that's what he was stylizing) is really well done.

As for the lineart issues, I noticed the same thing, and varying your line weights can make a huge difference. Sketches do this unintentionally, because there's all kinds of lines hanging around and the eye can comfortably select those that make the figure make the most sense. When you clean it down to a fixed linewidth and erase everything else, it can look really flat. I've started adding another step before I consider the lines "done" that thickens up corner areas, line overlaps, shadow-side lines, and along with a couple other loose rules I've found it breathes a lot of life back into the result.

[jellyswirl]

Wow great job working with just gray scale and not colors and all the life sketches. I know I should do more and do sometimes but its not a habit.

[vices]

RV-: Thanks man~ 10,000 hours right?

Jellyswirl: Thank you! I'm psyched to do colors and life sketches too.. soon!

Morkai: Ah man thank you so much. What you said was really helpful. I'd never thought about that and it caused me to rethink my art direction ^^


My roundabout goal for art has been to be able to bust out pictures in a style similar to some things Nerferinn has done: http://conceptart.org/forums/showthr...-Harders/page7

Specifically:
http://conceptart.org/forums/attachm...1&d=1298893929
http://conceptart.org/forums/attachm...1&d=1301043164
http://conceptart.org/forums/attachm...1&d=1307098522

In these pieces the lines from the sketch aren't visible, so I started a few months ago by assuming lines weren't important. My short time at the Korean Hagwon taught me that lines are super important even if they aren't visible. So I labored under the expectation that even after my sketching was better, none of those lines would be left in a final piece. Although Nerferinn's pics are hot, now I'm leaning towards an HTK style where some lines are visible, but important focus areas, such as the face, are painted.

So,
Onward!~


Also I gotta say hair is the most annoying thing in the world to paint.. what am I doing wrong..

[bouroune]

Yo Vices, nice amount of work in there, you make good progress.
I see you are focused on volumes and forms for now (which is good) and i just want to suggest you to add something to your study or imagination
that you are a bit in lack of, the balance of your character poses and think more about the force lines of your gestures
If you can simplify poses in few lines which are more dynamics and think about the balance rather than giving multiple directions with each part of the body to give some life it would really
add some believability and power to your character poses.
Anyway keep on working!

[vices]

bouroune: Thanks for the heads up on needing more force/believability in the mix! It is totally past time to work on that


I've started working on combining the dynamic characters of Ito Ogure (Manga artist, see: Tenjou Tenge, Air Gear) with the coloring of Hyung Tae Kim

Which means i've gotta draw dynamically like IO and render stunningly like HTK..

Which somehow equals light studies and manga gestures..

[Tindre]

Your sketchbook is amazing, it's so inspiring to see your progress!!

waaah, I am so glad I found it!

[vices]

Tindre: Thank you ^^ I'll try to get really good~



Lately I've been trying to increase the dark range of values and it's not easy. I have some kind of natural avoidance of darker values..

I've been studying pictures of artists I admire in grayscale and its difficult to nail down why it looks good.. later i'll post some other artists work with my thoughts

[CarmenJudy]

looking at your earlier work I was going to suggest working on a grey or colored background but on this last page I see you've already stumbled onto that trick. Its really helping your value range. Your studies are great and it seems like you've learned a lot. You should post a full composition or finished figure piece so you can show off what you've learned. Then maybe graduate to studies with a figure in space. Awesome work, I'll watch for more!

[vices]

CarmenJudy: Thanks for the kind words! I don't feel ready yet to do a full composition, but the comment about starting to put the figures in space is spot on~ I'll start working on that now ^^




I usually like the 'feeling' I get from the sketches more than the grayscale work. I'm hazarding a guess that it's partially due to the lack of details in the colored works that makes them seem -too- plastic

[vices]

I had a lot of thoughts while I was drawing but now that i'm posting they all escape me..

[vices]

I went to a life drawing class with my wacom for the first time~ It was tough. My biggest concern was that people would see a wacom and a tablet and think "Ooo professional!" and come over to look at my screen. And, well, they did. And walked away with a confused disappointed look. One girl looked at me like I was a little crazy.

[K-bot]

amazing book! I notice on the last page there is a lot of difference in quality... Some stuff looks spot on professional level, and other stuff doesn't look like the same person did it. I realize this is often an indication of time spent for most artists, but if I can give you one piece of advice, because it looks like you may be falling into the same trap that I have battled over my years of learning:

1- Even if your doing something from imagination, if your drawing starts to look sub par, stop and look up some reference to use loosely or do a study from, then come back.

2- If your not going to put the time in to get something working (or just dont have the time to begin with), make sure you focus on economy for the time you do put in. This will help you a lot if you ever work professionally as an artist, because from the first line to the last brush stroke, it should still look correct enough to pass off. Otherwise you need to stop and remake that stroke, or go and get reference/do a study until you CAN make the mark corectly. Richard Schmidt has a wonderful book that talks about this a a whole lot more called ala prima.

Anyways, keep up the good work, I dig your art!