Valya's Sketchbook - harsh critique welcome (update: 23/03/2013)

[Valyavande]

Lightship69: hey mate, how are you? I'm glad that you like the caravan picture! was a great experience to do it with crits of the people here!

Avis: thanks for stopping by! Gosh, it feels great to read that you like the cover design. Well, I'm design student, but books were never so much our topic. Was quite a challenge to do the whole thing. Even if my cover is more about about the picture and less about typography.
Regarding the environment, I had just a reference for the truck. One time I had the opportunity to drive such a thing and make some photos. That was cool. But I should do some more studies before trying to paint something again on my own. Fooling around with 3 vanishing points without having a plan is neither fun nor effective. But at least, I kick my comfort zone! But still, reading that I did some things right feels good. I will go on working hard and make to the other parts good too one day.
And more selfportraits will come for sure!

kina: which creatures do you mean? The plagues or the hippomouse? or all of them? I'm not quite sure now but I'm curious. Thanks for the nice words and visiting my sketchbook!

WRappiii: hey, thank you too for checking out! Well, even small things can make a picture look bad. I really should start to care about more about details.

aks9: great idea about the lighter second line! I can imagine the effect and definitly will use it the next time. Thanks a lot!

Rhubix: Glad that you like the creatures! Thanks for commenting.

Big update is coming now.
First, here's the complete coverpicture of my Bachelor Thesis.


Another selfportrait


photo studies



pencil sketches. Finally, i used a scanner again!







at last some sketches I did with a ball pen. Seems like I'm out of practice!

[rumpenstiltzkin]

oh wow so much goodies since last time i was here D: really nice!

[Umbravita]

That self portrait is gorgeous. Keep it up!

[thedestroyer]

Hallo Valyavande,

cool mal wieder jemanden aus der Heimat hier zu treffen.
Sehr coole arbeiten! Die "biblischen Plagen" finde ich sehr cool.
Die studies finde ich auch sehr gut!

Mach weiter so,

thedestroyer

[Little-Maiden]

Great god, those are really nice creatures. Enjoyed looking at them the other night.

I can certainly tell your stronger medium is pencil, they're really good clean sketch work.

The one crit I can offer is in regards to the photostudy a few posts above. I think you've got a great handle on organic lines but the helicopter seems to be twisting, as if it has a spine . Maybe its my eyes playing tricks on me cause the twist is subtle but it is noticeable if you look at it for a bit. I can't go on much since there aren't many recent vehicle drawings, but its something you could look into. Hope it helps.

Once again, thanks for dropping by my SB, ^^;

[Naidy]

Hey, Valya! I'm loving the self portraits, you're getting seriously good at painting digitally. The figure studies are looking pretty nice too, try to include fingers and feet more though, those things are always a pain to draw but if you get into the habit of including them, they'll get easier.

Your designs for creatures and clothes are really interesting too, keep it up mate!

[Bakker]

you creatures are awesome.

love the pencil studies too.

[Valyavande]

rumpenstiltzkin, Umbravita, thedestroyer, Bakker : thank you all very much for visiting! Glad that you like some of the stuff!

Little-Maiden: I'm kind of surprised that pencils seems to be my stronger medium. I feel more that I lack cooler pencil strokes and more contrast. But it's nonetheless a very good medium for making studies.
Doing more vehicles is definetly a thing I wanna do! Thank you very much for taking the time to write a comment!

Naidy: thanks a lot! Even if I'm focusing more on the torso at moment it would really be a good thing to include hand and feet. I will think of it the next time I'm doing figure drawings!

Small update just with portrait stuff. I wonder where that elf comes from... I want out of my comfort zone, not go back!
And my sketchbook is now one year old! I'm proud that I'm still here and motivated to learn. I really love being here on CA.org.

[Valyavande]

[Umbravita]

Happy sketchbook birthday!

Love that last b&w piece. There's something about those eyes that really give it an atmosphere. Will you work on it more? It seems unfinished.

[kasblue]

amazing amazing stuff! your improvements are inspirational!

[Black Spot]

That's it. I'm going to have to officially dislike you because you have red hair and I don't.

Big improvement since I was last here. Love the plague stuff.

[Valyavande]

Umbravita: thank ya! I don't think that I will go on with the portrait because it was just for the purpose of practising a man's head. There will be not so much more that I can learn out of it, so I go on with new stuff =)

kasblue: thanks a lot!

Black Spot: Seems like need to come along the next time I dye my hair, there's always a bit of the colour left
Thank you a lot for visiting my sketchbook. Cool thing that you like the plague characters =)

Small update with a selfportrait!
I wonder if there's something I should focus on while doing the self portraits. Any suggestions?

[Voodoo_Mama]

Great stuff!
I'm really enjoying your pencil drawings. I like the hatching and line quality.
The creatures of last page look excellent!
hmm I don't know what you could focus on while doing selfportraits. Maybe you could try one day focusing on edges, the next day on values, the next on color and so on?

[LtPlissken]

Last portrait painting is top notch,
and generally your digital paintings got
way better in the last pieces.

[Valyavande]

Voodoo_Mama: Seems like a good idea to try to focus on different subjects every day. Especially edges are a thing that I have no clue about ^^;

LtPlissken: thanks a lot for your words!

New selfportraits. Not really happy, but ok. I tried to change the perspective a bit.



Edit:
because this stuff isn't really worth a new post, I just add it here.

[Valyavande]

phoootoostudy!

[Valyavande]

A birthday present for a friend of mine. She's a big fan of The Legend of Zelda =)

[Valyavande]

[rumpenstiltzkin]

to me your portraits looks great, im struggling so much with faces ><
and the last hand study looks really good!

[fudgeloaf]

Hey thanks for the useful crit your completely right with being conscious about my studies, your faces are getting better and better watch your proportions though loomis can help you out with this dont forget to read his text too!

[Valyavande]

rumpenstiltzkin: I often feel like faces will be my enemy forever! So don't let yourself get down because of them. They're a really hard thing to master, but I'm sure we can do it!

fudgeloaf: thanks for visiting! I will try to keep an eye on my proportions. And I always read what's written in tutorials

ok... some shitty stuff is coming now. I feel like I have bad drawing days all the time D= fighting against comfort zones is pretty hard. But I will not give up!

photostudy of a space shuttle


crappy alien spaceship inspired by the awesome work of Feng Zhu


environments... DX

[Greenhouse]

First I want to say thanks for your comments in my sketchbook, it means a lot!
I’ve looked through your whole sb here and it’s great! The pen sketches are very good and so are the digital paintings. Keep posting!
Cheers!

[shockowaffel]

Hi and thx 4dropping by.
About Bridgman's Human machine: Dont expect too much from it.
It's an explanation where muscles are and what they do / how they work, but very often you just have to google the muscles because you can either not recognize what the guy has drawn or sometime it's just wrong. ^^
It's more like commented sketches than a an artist's guide to anatomy.
Dont get me wrong, it helps getting anatomy better, but you will need another more precise anatomical source as an addition.

About your works:
Your portraits and especially these last envis look really nice.
I know they could propably be improved...somehow, but I cant wuite put my finger on it. Maybe try to increase the contrast and crispness in the focal points some more to make them pop out (environments) or in case of the village, perhaps some more concrete lightning. It's a little tricky to tell what time or weather it is in this scene. There's this one spot sunshine but the rest is rather diffuse.

The portraits look solid and really nice. Something's still off but here I can only guess, right now. Maybe the nares ? I think you shouldnt see them when looking from above, but I could very well be wrong there.

[Lightship69]

Hi there matey

well now you have gone and done it!! you are far too good for me to crit anymore, as you are way better than me. So I shall just have to sit back and admire your work from now on!

I seriously loved those hands you did by the way in poat 257 reall top notch well done.

Ok going now stay well keep posting and all the best to you.

[Voodoo_Mama]

The environments are looking good! The study of the hands on post 257 is beautiful O:
I don't know much about edges either. A friend showed me this links, maybe they will help you too
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/sho...d.php?t=125553
http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/20...and-edges.html

[Rotor]

Great progress with the self-portraits.
It looks like you're getting more comfortable with valuework.

[aks9]

greeeeat work! thx for your comment on my sb
the hand photo study is really good, i like those last enviros a lot
#259 looks a little flat, it might be a value problem? idk im not very good at those yet
very inspiring sketchbook

[LordLouis]

Hey Valya,

Thank you for your quick reply in my sketchbook
I will come back to it with the next update anyway, but I wanted to return the favour now.

Well, first of all- What the HELL?!!
How did you improve so massively within so few months? WOW!
I am stunned. Especially as I haven't looked into here for a very long time, I see really good progress especially with your portraits and heads- how do you manage the angles? Do you paint yourself from photos as well?

I think by far your strongest point are your creatures. Hippomouse and your toad-variations just rock! Very sophisticated and confident lines- superb
How do you come about your use of colours? Do you use a colour chart?

Wow very nice stuff indeed... thumbs up!

[Little-Maiden]

Thanks for dropping by again! I always peek at your SB but am at a loss for crits I will however call you out on lies! I'm not gonna catch up to you soon! The most recent study of hands blew me away!. Also digging the enviros I can't show depth in my own attempts at environments for the life of me.

I look forward to more updates!