Improvement happening... gradually.

[tenaciousartist]

Hi! I love the tree on the hill. I am a long time artist and I came here to learn about computer art. The sketch you did of the tree is the kind of look I like for a future project.
Keep up the good work. I will be checking back to see what you are doing. I hope to learn from your impressive work!

[Nelka]

Spiralpen, tenaciousartist, thank you very much for the support!

I haven't done much studies in a while, so I thought I'd do a quick portrait speedpaint from reference (my own).
C&C would be appreciated.

[Kaffeetrinken]

Very nice work! Like your own note!

Greetings Kaffeetrinken

[LordLouis]

I am a great fan of beards and I am founding member of the "beards are manly, and men must be manly" movement!
- So I would absolutely love to see your bear worked out more
I see this is a speedpaint, but in the end you paid a lot of attention to detail on the nose and eyes. I am not quite sure about the position of the left eye; it seems to high. But I might be mistaken being a beginner myself.

I really like your sb anyway

[Nelka]

Here's some quick uploads. Been busy, so didn't really get to do much of the actual study stuff. Another painting practice (okay, I'm gonna try variate a bit more), and some life drawing. The last sketch was just me messing about while bored somewhere, and I remembered the CHOW topic.

I think my next study is gonna be lips. Lots of them. And better colouring. At least I feel kinda more to grips with general painting - stuck to a single layer on that first one.

Expect more improvement CA, and please crit harshly if there isn't enough

Kaffeetrinken: Thank you!
LordLouis: I will definitely render the daylight out of that pic then. Seems I should complete the exercise, and I generally give up on a picture too quickly. Thank you!

[jatherip]

to me it looks like you were on the right track! study is the key. totally. if you find any weakness in your work, study the hell out of that subject! keep it up, lady!

[Nelka]

Jatherip: So awesome of you to stop by! Thank you, I'll keep at it

Just thought I'd update with a WIP. Yes, still a portrait, but I'm attempting to work from photo reference again, since the self portraits were all from a mirror. Also, trying something new with colour.
Some help would be appreciated. I've noticed the photo sort of distorted the head shape when I started trying to paint it, so I'll be fixing that. The original photo had some strong light, so I'm kind of winging the shading. Figured it would be boring to have the face in the harsh light with the painting.

[Nelka]

Like I said, I suck at painting mouths. So I figured I'd do a couple of sketches. I realised painting them is very different from sketching/drawing. Much easier to do the latter for me. My lips are pretty thin, which made it more difficult, but I at least now know where I can exaggerate features and stuff.
So yeah, some quick speedpaints.

If anyone checks in here, I'd love to know if there is any improvement pretty please :3

[Nelka]

As promised to LordLouis, I thought I'd work on the portrait some more.
Still keeping it as a sketch though, but I think some things are fixed.

[Nelka]

I feel like I'm spamming repeats here, but I figured more progress warrants an update. Sort of have the Caroline portrait done, but not going into the hectic after-details until after I throw it to the wolves in the Crit centre.
But yeah, failing any crits there, if anyone stops by here, please drop a message!

[Feil Magnus]

Hi, your portraits are quite nice,
here are my crits for the last one,sorry if i'm being harsh but crits are never funny.
for the last one a small highlight on the nose could be nice, the right eye feels out of place to me(it's very well renderd btw) or maybe it's the eyebrow that needs some value variation in hue.
Moreover as your background is green, it means there is a lightsource that makes the light bump on this green and so the green sould reflect it's own color into the character, you could put some greenish dark tones in the shadowy parts of the character.
One more thing the neck part of this pretty girl needs to be fixed.
That's all for now, sorry for the harsh tone, some of my crits might be wrong as well i'm not an expert at all, you ve got some good skills and your portraits are coming out better and better, keep up the good work.

[Nelka]

Feil Magnus: Thanks for the crit. The other thread was pretty quiet, but I tried to follow some of your advice.

Anyway, I'm done with this one for now. Thanks to the awesome CA crits, I think it's a bit of an improvement. YAY no more alien eyes!!! Though I pretty much scrapped using the reference now...

[wooden mango]

Hello, nice stuff so far. Keep up those figure you're studies. You're definitely improving.

My crtique on your portrait (although I know you are finished, but you can apply this to the next one) it that the bone structure around the eyes doesn't seem very well defined. Also the left side of her lips is bigger at the top than the on the right. The red area should actually appear shorter on the left side than on the right..I'm not sure if I am explaining that very well.

Also you may want to consider checking out Loomis' drawing the head and hands (it's a pdf) if you haven't already. There are some nifty instructions about constructing the head that I hadn't thought of before. Like instead of starting with an oval, you start with a sphere then ad the chin. Anyway, you may know that already but if you haven't checked it out, definitely do so.

Keep up the good work!

[Kode]

Thanks for stopping by my sketchbook.
Just had a look around, sadly my novice eyes can't see anything to really crit on. My favourite is the portrait of the guy with the beard, looks like he has a good strong gaze on the go.

[Nelka]

Wooden Mango: Thank you for the crit. I agree with you on that part. I've done studies from loomis before, but I kinda tried to do a mass-drawing/blob thing for my construction since there was reference, and that was my downfall. I must say, after all the advice I've gotten post-mortem on the pic, I'm definitely going to avoid those noob mistakes I inevitably ended up doing. I guess it's time to open those books up again and do a refresher.

Kode: Thanks for checking mine out too. I think out of all my portrait studies that one was the only successful one.

It's been almost a month since my last update. I feel pretty lame about that. Maybe I should get an SSG to get me going more. It's not really all that great trying to work on all this stuff in near-isolation, artistically speaking.

Anyway, this is a quick sketch I did. It's basically just a "concept thumbnail" for class, so I'm not exactly excited about it. But it's something. Excuse the pose, anatomy, painting, colouring, etc. I didn't use any reference for it and I just sort of constructed it on a couple of layers. Deadline is next week friday, so there will definitely be an update in the same vein within the next week. Just you know, not crappy. D:

[shambok]

You have some lovely work! Cant wait to see more!

[Charmer]

Hey Nelka! Pretty cool sketchbook! I have my problems with lips, too. Sometimes it's too hard to get good lips. Definitely need to practice that on my own.

Anyway keep it up!
-Flo

[Nelka]

Shambok: Hey hey, glad you stopped by!

TRAP: Yeah, the lips thing doesn't go away until you just work on it all the time. Those studies were definitely worth it, even if they were roughs. Try it out.

Anyway, here's some minor updates. Tried to remember how to stylise with the first one. The expression thing was from a youtube video the folks on IRC kindly referred me to. It's actually pretty awesome. I haven't sketched properly in pencil in a while (you can tell by the first sketch being so crappy), so it was good to get back to. Plus I rediscovered contour! OMIGASH! I'm gonna do another page of these, plus female ones, but right now, I need some sleep.

[Rafal Dorsz]

Hey there.
I think you should do more paintings from life to improve your colors. Colors and values actually. Other than that I noticed you have a little problem with placing eyes on the head properly.
I can definitely see improvement in your works, so keep it up, and you'll do just fine.
Cheers!

[kidult]

Hey!! Good to see you again!! your work is looking awesome! The hard work will keep paying off and make you rockin!

will post sum proppa crits and stuffs soon...

[Nelka]

Gildorek: Hey thanks. You're right about the eye thing, I think I have an issue with it when I do stuff digitally especially. I'll try to pay more attention.

Kidult: Can't wait

Anyway, here's some stuff from saturday. We were supposed to have a figure studies group day but the model bailed, so one of the artists kindly stepped in. Most of it is 1-minute gesture sketches, then one 5 minute pose with ink, and a 15 minute sketch. Loads of fun!
Oh, also, John_o's cat.

[Nelka]

Last night's thunderdome thinngie of 1 hour. Topic was "magical girl". Heh.
And a WIP for a poster design for class, just to show proof that I am actually working (I'm not slacking, promise!). >.>

[Nelka]

Quick WIP update. Just doing a still from the "planet earth" show, to try and improve my colour selection and painting. Annoyingly, the tree-trunk is this weird mix of magenta and grey. Looks weird. So excuse it not being "tree trunk brown". Gonna do more, but I need to get back to uni work.

[Nelka]

Bored in class. Another national geographic sketch.

[kidult]

These are all looking very nice! I would suggest trying to buckle down and do a long study or 2. Try painting as much detail as you can or spend an hour just trying to get the outline right. I found ,for me at the moment at least, more intense studies are teaching me more as apposed to the ones I just rush to get a study done. 4-6 houras at least!!

[Nelka]

Some lineart for a figure study I still need to start working on. My back is in a lot of pain all of a sudden though, so I'm gonna save it for tomorrow, or later. If anyone has any tips on rendering skintone realistically, I'd love the help

[Urötskidoji]

Thanks for the crit in my sketchbook, thought I´d repay the favor!

You have a great sense of color, but I would want to see some more anatomy studies and speed in your pictures. I think if you did some more action poses might be a great inspiration!

My nickname is actually from an old anime cult classic (2nd anime I ever saw), but I actually spelled the name wrong
I recommend watching it, it´s pretty good:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKb8m...WtUQHY&index=2

Keep up the good work mate! Will keep checking in!

[Nelka]

Urötskidoji: I thought colour was my worst trait. Thank you! And yeah I remember that movie - it was horrible! Haha, some of those old animes are just... weird.

Anyway, I've had a rough university-workload-week last week, so I decided to do nothing all weekend. I did however do sketches of random people in a bar as quick gesture practice (small A6 book). I'm not sure what the first ink thing was though, I was sleep deprived.
And actually got a friend to pose for a bit too in that last one.
I forgot my pencil, so everything was in pen, which was a refreshing change from the usual stuff. Man, drawing moving people is hard =(

[Nelka]

Photostudy. Yay.

[Charmer]

Hi Nelka! That last head is awesome. The neck looks a bit stiff but I think that's her neck in real. Anyway, the head itself looks good!

Keep it up dudette