Never Enough Tea - tulokyn's sketchbook - Daily!

[tulokyn]

I have been a lurking member for far too long, and I've decided to put up a new sketchbook. I'm sick of looking wistfully at others improvement without having a shiny thread to polish up myself. Some of what is in here is work for my webcomic, and has a decidely manga-esque look, but I'm working a lot on anatomy and other various bits and pieces right now, so hopefully it's all fine.

Enough of my meandering nervous chatter, on to the art!

This update includes studies of vulture heads, a sketchy ad idea, lots of bridgeman and posemaniacs, and some doodles. See you later!

[Greip]

Looks good! You've a nice sketching technique on those bird drawings, and your anatomy studies looks fine too. Would be nice to see some paintings in the future!

[tulokyn]

Greip: Thanks for the first comment! I'm currently trying to arrange my apartment such that I can start doing some painting again. I painted for a semester at university and fell in love with it, but a tiny apartment and two cats have made continuing with oils to be difficult. I think I'm just going to say screw it and do some work with acrylics. I'm also expecting some new anatomy books to show up on my doorstep tomorrow, which I am way too excited about.


So here are today's offerings. Some vulture studies from last night, a page of pixellovely gestures, and a bunch of random stuff from life. I really need to get a still life set up working here. Need to steal the lamp from the kitchen or something.

Please give crits/suggestions!

[TacoMeat]

Great start. The gestures are looking good and your bird and torso studies are pretty solid. keep up the good work.

[tulokyn]

Tacomeat: Thank you. The encouragement is always appreciated.

Today, some lazy half-assed gestures with some broken down barn/shack type things, a page of Bridgman torsos that made me question to usefulness of these studies, a portrait from reference that told me I need to do a lot more work on realistic heads with some drawings of my cats from life, and a little drawing from photo of some guy on www.style-arena.jp

[jNeumann]

Hey! Great Start, anatomy is looking good. The birds rock as well, keep it up!

[FootstepsBeckon]

keep up the posemaniacs poses,that seems to be yoru strongest page so far.

Fancy ganging up to TAKE ON THE ART WORLD?

[karmiclychee]

I've been mulling over Bridgman for a while too and... it's interesting. I think the purpose, more than anything else, is to apply Bridgman to actual life studies. He's trying to help you see the underlying mechanics of the figure before you. I actually see wireframes sometimes in real life now. I don't think they apply to flat pictures very well until you see them in real life.

Or, unless you're a savant.

Keep doing the photo ref and the bridgman, and try to draw from life when you can (I can't seem to find a suitable place to hang out to draw people, especially in the winter now, and the local class is 400 bucks for the semester - I am le poor). They'll converge, eventually.

EDIT: also, I like your cats.

[The_Flying_Dutchman]

Hey, nice work so far. Keep drawing and keep posting!

[tulokyn]

jNeumann, FootstepsBeckon, The_Flying_Dutchman: Thanks for dropping by and leaving encouragement! I appreciate it.

karmiclychee: Yes, I think you're right about Bridgman. Thanks to your comment, I did half of my eye studies from life today, got a whole mirror and lamp setup happening at my desk. As for hanging out and drawing people, coffeeshops, the mall, and the library are good places here. There are always old people sitting around in the food court at the mall, and most people in publi have a ouple default positions they shift into, so you can just work on two or three drawings of the same person, or if you're worried about getting caught, just start drawing the person next to them!

Here is my meager offering for today. Had a rough day of waiting for a package that never came. So frustrating.

[karmiclychee]

Beautiful eyes - your hatching shading is really awesome. I have a tendency to stick to one kind of pencil for my studies, I don't seem to have the same kind of bold lines that you do. I've been using the HB lately, sometimes 2 or 4H. Bs go too soft on me too quickly.

[tulokyn]

karmiclychee: Thank you! I'm actually just using a school-type HB pencil. Way back when I was doing animation study, our class equipment list told us to get a box of 72 pencils from the offie supply store; the brand was Papermate Mirado, and they were something like $13 canadian for the whole box. I got rather attached to them, so they're pretty much all I use. The way I get them bold in my scans is to lower the Gamma in Irfanview's colour corrections menu from 1.0 to about .5.

I finally got my new anatomy books today, after walking to the post office to see if they would give them to me since they couldn't be arsed to deliver them. David Rubins, some Bridgman, and a book of Albinus plates put together by Robert Beverly Hale.

I did some studies from the first two, and then doodled some armless torsos from my imagination at the bottom of the page. PLEASE crit them to shreds!

[Envodas]

hey man, i love your anatomical stuff, really nice linework! cant wait to see whas you produce when you go digital

[tulokyn]

Envodas: Hey thanks! :3 I was much too lame to go digital today; maybe tomorrow.

Today I've got a bunch of gestures from posemaniacs, pixellovely, and then with the Rubins studies there's a bunch from my head based on a technique I found by mentler over here.

[FootstepsBeckon]

looking good,but goddamn your lead isn't gonna break the page...I CAN BARELY SEE ANYTHING FFFFFFFF PRESS HARDER FFFFFFF *whine*

[sykeros]

I like your sketches, especially the musculature studies! Keep it up and post your more developed stuff too, I'd love to see it.

[TacoMeat]

I know this is a sketchbook and all, but I would also like to see a more complete drawing from you. Your sketchbook is awesome as always. keep up the good work.

[tulokyn]

Footsteps: Like your pages are any better. You need to turn up the contrast on your monitor. Seriously though, I'm only using an HB pencil. It only gets so dark before the scanner starts reflecting it. I will see what I can do though.

sykeros: thanks very much. :3 I ahven't got a lot of stuff like that lying around, but you guys are guilting me into working on it. So it's coming.

Tacomeat: Yes, I will work on it. Thanks for coming back!

Someone needs to take this copy of Photoshop away from me before I make it cry. =__=

[tulokyn]

Euuuugh.

[karmiclychee]

Your ball? Excellent. Really - well done on your color gradient there. Try, next time, to forgo the lines, it apparently helps you start thinking in terms of value regions and the like, and less along the lines (ah ha, a pun) of contour, which are flat. Don't start on white - a big help when establishing your values. I start either on my shadow or something slightly darker than my midtones. Just use the paintbucket tool before you start. Also, one of the best tutorials of all time: Edges

Speaking of contours - your contours are really, really... tight. Contour drawings should look loose, messy. I'm not sure how you hold your pencil, but try some of the suggestions here: How to Hold a Pencil. I was getting really frustrated with my progress until the night I remembered the above advice and held my pencil way the hell up near the top (the brush grip).

The point of gesture and holding your pencil differently is to get away from the way that we write, which is counter-intuitive to the way that you should draw. Writing is in the fingers whereas drawing should be more from the wrist and the arm - another way to help that is to draw big. Ideally - REALLY big (I love drawing on newsprint tacked all over a wall with charcoal - full body), but even just amping up from the standard 9 x 12 sketchbook to an 11 x 14 for studies was a huge help. I can move my arm much more than trying to squeeze stuff into a smaller space, which is more wrist-y.

Regarding anatomy - do you have Bridgman? If you don't, I'd suggest you grab Constructive Anatomy. He outlines human anatomy in terms of masses and volumes rather than the more medical approach.

[Lang Oulk]

Hello there, nice start on your sketchbook I like all the studies and gestures you do, only crit right now is to try and apply the anatomy you study to something from imagination to help really nail it in your head! Keep up the good work!

[tulokyn]

karmiclychee: Thanks so much for the encouragement on the digipaint. I think sometimes I am so overwhelmed by my incompetence at it that I forget that even in my lack of skill, I still have knowledge to make my attempts look at least half worhtwhile. Thank you. I haven't read the edges link yet, but I will tonight after I get back from groceries.

Heh, you see my animation training peeking through. I have been fighting my "excellent linework" for a few years now. Holding the pencil differently may help. Thank you.

Yes I have Bridgman, but I find his work can be just vague enough to leave me scratching my head, so I've been working from a David Rubins book recently, to cement the actual muscles in my head. I will be using it in addition to Bridgman very soon.

Lang Oulk: Thank you. Yes you are right. I did an attempt at a torso anatomy study from my head last night and realized how little had actually stuck. I need to do more, and I will, in addition to imaginative works.

Here's my lame afternoon in a page: expression work!

[tulokyn]

This is about how far I get with Photoshop in 30 minutes, and about how long it takes me to want to pull me hair out. What am I doing?

[karmiclychee]

I'm telling you! Do a full canvas grey first! Don't start on white! And paint your surface too, you need that for the reflective light.

[tulokyn]

My surface is a sheet of white paper!

[eeedward]

I love your drawings of the eyes~! Amazing

Your shading is awesome, it makes everything look 3D-ish~

[Stacybean]

My surface is a sheet of white paper!

If you take his advice to heart, it will really help you.

[FootstepsBeckon]

hoi tulo. Remember me? the point with the white background is the background colour acts as the buffer for your colour midtones...take your onion picture into photoshop and add a layer,paintbucket the background and make it a light grey. Do it again and make it a dark green..save both image adjustments and flick through them to see the difference...it throws the reaction in the eyes to your onion colours differently. Colour theory missy

The expressiosn were good,but did they really take an afternoon and if so how long do you draw uninterrupted? they look very very basic (in lines i mean not style) and though i know its a new technique to get used to,i feel like you're getting a bit rooted in manga head shapes for some reason.

ILL CRIT YOU IN THE FACE LATER TULO 3333333333


Will

[ladyknowles]

I love your work Also, I love drawing birds so you have gained one shiny gold star from me. (Not that it means anything from a lowly artist like me)

Nice!

[FootstepsBeckon]

Tulo i think you should take lady knowles under your wing.