| Sketchbook... of magic!

[MrMagic]

Hello,

New here. First post, might as well introduce myself. I'm 21, from this little
baltic country in Europe called Lithuania. I study informatics engineering at uni,
but lately I've been thinking that I study the wrong thing. Too late to quit now,eh?
But who's to stop me to try things that I really like?

I have my fair share of experience in digital media (photoshop, illustrator),
but I've always wanted to draw and now I've made the decision to try hard and learn.

Go to last page for recent stuff!

[Rhubix]

Great start here. Keep on working with the fundamentals and you'll see improvement. Since you started with a self portrait, it might be fun to do one every month or so- it would give you a fun scale of progress .

[MrMagic]

Thanks, Rhubix for commenting. That's a great idea with the portrait drawing

Anywho, I spent some time today for studying the bone structure more.

My shadowing using strokes sucks, and I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. Tips, anyone?

[tronrobot]

Great stuff keep it up!
- thanks for commenting on my sketchbook

[Rain Walker]

great studies... perspective, anatomy... u can even try colors... its fun ..

[karmiclychee]

Hey man, thanks for the comment on my SB - I'm glad you learned something from my stuff!

Looking good over here - you've already got signs of a strong, energetic hand. Great anatomy studies - just remember that the high detail isn't necessary! It's good to know what's where when you're looking at the body (it's cool too, like X-Ray vision), but that's about it. I learned there are two things that are important after you do the skeleton: muscles only pull (they never push), and you should learn where they start and where they end (the origin and their insertion).

Gestures: it finally clicked for me how to do gestures last night - it's helpful to blur your eyes so you can see the form of the figure, but not the details. See the form, but don't recongnize it. That way, you're drawing what you see and not what you "think" you see. Your brain thinks it knows what a thigh looks like, and it fights your eyes, which actually sees something else.

Good luck!

[MrMagic]

tronrobot - thanks, and no probs

Rain walker - I'll jump into colors when I get a tablet not too hot about coloring with a mouse (or traditional coloring).

karmiclychee - thanks a lot! I tried a few pages of 1 min gesture drawing. Tried to be loose and just went with the flow, without paying too much attention to the "correctness" of it all. I was just blown away, not that I did good, but I enjoyed it a lot! Especially drawing the women curves (but don't tell my girlfriend that, haha).

Anywho, I always started with the center/gesture line, then the head, and etc. Like you said. Worked like a charm!

Though next time I will use my charcoal pencil, cause I had a hard time scanning the HB pencil's lighter strokes.

[LordLouis]

Hey, good to see someone working on the same stuff then I do
Just keep going with it; I have just finished a book of Bridgeman over heads and faces, and my (self)-portraits have improved massively (though being far from good).

Just getting the shapes into the head is probably the hardest bit.
I find it really interesting that though you have scetched EXCACTLY the same loomis figures I did, and it looks so different. Exciting

Up for some competition?

Cheers!

[karmiclychee]

YES. BADASS. HARDCORE! D

You'll find that the broader strokes of a charcoal pencil (stick with soft, or medium at the very most) will fill in the form much better than a pencil - they tend to lend themselves to gestures because you can get beautiful broad strokes to cover both the contour and value of an area.

For working larger, there's also vine charcoal, which comes anywhere between thin sticks to big fat wide ones. I've tried using them in my smaller books, but it just doesn't work the same. they're too messy and hard to control at small scale.

If you don't already have it - http://pixelovely.com/tools/gesture.html is awesome for gestures.

Alternatively, you can start harvesting your own pictures (get nice dynamic poses, good lighting, full body) - http://characterdesigns.com/index.ph...page=photosets is a great place to start, as is http://www.pascalrenoux.com/Nudes.html
Then get the free irfan viewer - http://www.irfanview.com/

And you can make your own slideshows down to the number of seconds!

[MrMagic]

LordLouis - that would be an unfair competition, you're way ahead of me

karmiclychee - thanks for the links I use pixelovely.com at the moment. But gonna try irfan and other models, when the ones in pixelovely start to repeat too often

Tried gesture drawing for today again. Used my charcoal pencil. Didn't quite like it as much as my mechanical. Also I started with 30 sec per gesture (first page). Not too good . Then set 1 min again (second page). A little better But it seems that one minute is too much for me now. Gonna try irfanview and 45 secs or something next time

Oh, also did some muscle studies from Loomis. Great stuff, didn't know the biceps is attached to the collar bone :o

[karmiclychee]

My updates are forthcoming, thanks for the prod I just get so angry with the CA uploader... it takes FOREVER.

Gestures... yes, it's true, I use different mediums. You'll find that different mediums tend to "bite" the paper differently - pencils drag, pens slip across the surface, dip quills will catch and flick ink, charcoal smudges. It all depends on the level of control you're looking for, what you feel like, what you want to work with.

Your strokes will be faster with a ballpoint, more permanent with a liquid ink pen. Markers are good for blocking in value (if you read Hellboy, Mignola has some awesome quick doodles of Hellboy done with just flat strokes of a black marker). Because it's so permanent (and you can't make light prelim strokes) pens are good for learning how to pick your lines.

Then you've got your H and B pencils -smaller lines, more control of your forms and contour. Charcoal, you get less control of the contour, but more value.

Ink wash... I'm not particularly good at this one yet. You need source material with REALLY good lighting because all you can do is work lights and darks.

Really - just play.

Your gestures are looking damn good. I can tell the poses of your 30 sec gestures, which is pretty much all you'd be able to see. I'd say to stick with with the 1 - 2 minute range for the bulk and warm up with a slew of the faster ones to get your hands and eyes working.


... I should follow my own advice, really.

[karmiclychee]

Oh, and a good reference for Anatomy is David Rubins' Human Figure. To understand the volume of human figures, use that and Bridgman's Constructive Anatomy together (but don't use Constructive Anatomy alone - it's useless if you don't know your physiology).

[Amara91]

Hey man, you're off to a great start---don't give up! Its frustrating as hell but don't stop drawing dude


oh, Bridgman and loomis are decent, but look up a book called "Figure Drawing: Design and Invention" by Michael Hampton. MUCH better book on figure drawing than Andrew Loomis' rendition imo. "Force: Dynamic Life Drawing for Animators" by Michael D. Mattesi is another good book in conjunction with that..they focus more on giving your figure drawings LIFE as well as anatomy by focusing a lot on gesture and movement.

ANYWAY

Keep em Comin! Draw basic shapes like Cones, Cubes, Cylinders, and Spheres so you can learn about value, light, and form. Its a pretty good foundation.

[Tadas]

O dar vienas lietuvis atrodo gera linkme eini, studijas tokias darydamas

Good luck!

[donthedragon]

Great start here, I like what I'm seeing

Haven't had chance to pick up Loomis' books yet, will seek them out once I get paid!

Keep up the good work.

-don

[Fantillus]

Wow you are really improving fast, way to go! I actually really like your shading strokes and cross hatching on the skeletal studies. The gesture drawings are looking very nice as well. I saw that you said that you wanna wait until you get a tablet to try colors, and to that I say grab yourself a cheap watercolor set and some thick paper and try that in the mean time if you have the funds. Watercolor is quick and easy, plus you can gradually shade or make sharp edges by varying how you apply the paint and how much water you use.

Whatever you decide to do, keep it up! I know I want to see more. =)

[MrMagic]

Thank you karmiclychee, Amara, Tadai, donthedragon and Fantillus

I was not so productive the last two days, but I was reading some anatomy books!

Here's something worth showing, I guess - some facial structure studies and nude anatomy/shading study. Used a ref. Didn't even bother with the face, need to practice those more seperately.


P.S. I hate the attachment manager. Why are we forced to enter every little detail about our day to day sketches?

[HAJiME]

Good start, keep it coming.

[karmiclychee]

Those facial plane studies are awesome!

The least you should do for the faces (believe me, I have issues with them) is to throw in the basic values - planes of the forehead, nose, cheeks and chin.

[MrMagic]

Thanks, HAJiME.

karmiclychee, thanks, I'm trying


Wanted to draw a quick skull as a study. Shaded by hatching and cross hatching at first, but I saw that it looked like shit, so I rendered it as best I could. Still not too well

And NOW that I look at it, the proportions are wrong... Oh well.

[AliceA]

Hey thanks for stopping by my SB!
I see you are studing Loomis, it helped me so much (and still does) so go ahead with it and keep drawing!!

[MrMagic]

Thanks AliceA!

Sorry for the pause, was a little pre-occupied

Small update, more skulls! Facial structure + lighting + rendering exercise

[karmiclychee]

oooh, good contrast, man!

[JoeS]

Hey MrMagic, a good start here You were asking about my linework. Yes I use a HB normal pencil sharp to a point but sometimes a mechanical one is nice for rendering with. When sketching hold your pencil fairly high up and try to use long single lines rather than lots of small ones linked together - that is called feathering. Also I try to use line weights, I wont be able to explain it to you clearly but this post on David Finch's blog should help http://davefinchart.blogspot.com/200...e-weights.html

[MrMagic]

Thanks, karmiclychee.

Joes, I've taken a look, and there's definitely some valuable stuff there. Thanks.
Though I can't force myself to stop feathering! When I try doing long strokes, I don't get the lines I want..

Done some figure studies and ... a cartoony face from imagination and a freaky eye


On a lighter note, I ordered myself a tablet, woo!

[MrMagic]

Hello, digital media!

I think I'm gonna enjoy this.


This piece was somewhat to get in touch with the tablet. To get used to it.

It was very fun

[MrMagic]

Work in progress.

Jumped in to colors too early, and scrapped 'em, back to this.

Also it was too much trial and error, to see what woks and what doesn't.

Any tips?

[Spats]

Hey there!

I'm glad to see you're enjoying digital stuff, don't forget about pencils completely though.

Using a tablet early on won't certainly hurt but learning basic stuff using some graphite and paper I feel can teach you a thing or two a tablet can't.

Keep at it, I'll be checking back.

edit:

Just a small pointer in regards to your digital work - it's really good that you're using both soft edged brushes and hard edged brushes but the way you've used them makes the brushstrokes stand out too much from eachother. Creating contrast between strokes is good but they way they are now makes them look like they're sitting on completely separate layers (which is also propably the case). So try to experiment with different brushes and maybe even create some simple custom brushes.

[MrMagic]

Thank you for your help.

The thing with the layers, yes, I'm keeping different stuff on different layers. That's not a good thing? I'm doing that so I can easily edit the brushwork later.

About the brushes.. Trying to get the hang of it all.. I've been searching for some sharp brushes, went through all of them in photoshop, and even looked at some custom ones other people made. Didn't quite find ones I like. And when I do find the one I like, I end up using it throughout all of the brushing.

I'll try to mix it up.

[Spats]

Thank you for your help.

The thing with the layers, yes, I'm keeping different stuff on different layers. That's not a good thing? I'm doing that so I can easily edit the brushwork later.

About the brushes.. Trying to get the hang of it all.. I've been searching for some sharp brushes, went through all of them in photoshop, and even looked at some custom ones other people made. Didn't quite find ones I like. And when I do find the one I like, I end up using it throughout all of the brushing.

I'll try to mix it up.

I guess I'm only trying to say that I'd like to see some simpler studies from you. Layers are an invaluable tool but I'd like to see perhaps a less complicated study of light and form where you're not using layers. Helps you keep focus on the things that matter.

And as far as brushes and all that go, start expanding your brush library whenever you feel comfortable with the ones you're already using and feel like new brushes can contribute to your art in a meaningful way. It's really easy to get lost in a jungle of crazy brushes and not end up using any of them.

I hope I'm not being too long-winded about a simple thing, heh. Just keep drawing mate. It's the only way to get better.