Ville's Sketchbook: C&C greatly apreciated

[Ville_S]

aaand sketches. drawn from ref.

[Suncut]

Liking your studies, especially the lastest ones. On the first still lives you did you could have done with more careful color observation, the fabrics definately had more color variations, especially next to the objects. Always nice to see more finns, as ismo said .

[smuli]

Good colors on the color studies and I like how you're mimicking the textures with the brush strokes, like how you did the trees on this one - looks nicely loose and appealing! Great values on the motorcycle and the colors do look illustration-like in a nice way IMO, with a creamy kind of warmth to them (if that makes any sense). The study from The Name of the Rose also has great values, looks like a 3d render if I squint my eyes. I admire your persistence to get it right. Keep the studies coming!

[Ville_S]

And it seems I have passed the thousand views mark. Hoorray! thanks for anyone whose checked my sketchbook and special big thankyou for those who have commented. thanks again!

Suncut: thankyou! Cos I'm snoopy kinda person I immediatelly had to check your sketchbook and I have to say, plenty of awesome stuff there. Going to watch it like a hawk. I especially liked those mugshot studies. Seemed like fun thing to do so I might try it also.
I just checked the first still life I did and had a facepalm moment. ofcourse! the greens and purples coming from the vase and plant! Why didn't I pay more attention. oh well, next time.

smuli: Cheers mate!
You have no idea how I strugled with those trees. in the end I decided to try make random shapes using lasso tool and then painting those areas with varying opacity and color...and then repeat repeat repeat.

Visited Ateneum (Art museum in Helsinki) yesterday to chec the new exhibit. I was really fired up and planning to do several detailed sketches and notes...turns out that did not happen. I have never before tried to draw in public place, so for some reason I felt really akward. Couldn't concentrate like at al. Whenever I felt someone walking or talking behind me, I got this feeling of someone constantly looking over my shoulder. It's silly I know, but I couldn't help it. So all I managed to do is these two pages of really quick simplified gesture drawings. And there was so much cool stuff there. I need to go back. Albert Edelfelts paintings made huge impression on me. Amazing doesn't come even close describing hes paintings.

The woman portrait in the second pic is drawn from reference and the anatomy fig is from Loomis as is all the stuff in the third pic.

[Ville_S]

finished motorcycle and some reptiles. Cos reptiles are awesome.

[Ville_S]

sketches I did yesterday. Some quick loomis studies, some scribbles I did from memory, (trying to figure out where my memory fails when it comes to humen anatomy) and some quick mongoose gestures I did while watching nature documentary.

[Spats]

Seriously good stuff. Keep posting dude.

[Ville_S]

Spats: thanks! I'll try my very best.

But now, all hail our mighty iguanian overlords.
Haven't done any human drawings today. That's bad...very bad.

[Ville_S]

sum daily loomis and some Erythrosuchus sketches. Not technically a dinosaur but still a very very cool ectinct critter.

[Featheredface]

Nice reptiles! The scales must be interesting to render.

You have a really nice start here! I'd love to see painted human faces from you. Not a critique, just a personal suggestion, haha.

[Ville_S]

Busy little bee with comissioned technical illustrations. This is the only thing I did today (not counting comissions ofcourse).
I have usually tried to avoid using textures because I thought it was kind of evil. Tool that just cheapens your artwork. But just yesterday I saw a vid where someone used textures to create illusion of traditional painting on canvas. Really cool stuff. If there's something I have always disliked about digital painting it's that smooth perfect digital look. This might just be the thing I have been looking for. This is quick test I did this morning. Very quick and very rough and I quite like it.

[Ville_S]

wow..it has been a while. Still working hard on the comissioned scientific illustrations. Tedious and hard work, but I'm doing good progress. Because of the comissioned work I really have not sketched a whole lot lately. but that's going to change starting now.

Here's a speedpainting I did today based on the sketch I posted some time ago.

[Moonrage]

On the last one you could use some more hard edges. It kinda lacks definition of the light-shadow boundaries. Overally very nice drawing and color skills. I like your lizard inks.

[Ville_S]

Moonrage: Thanks! I'm glad you like my lizard sketchies.

On the creepy dood speedpaint. Could you possibly make a quick paintover?
There's few things that make me wan't to avoid the hard edges in this paint. As I have understood it the hard edges are really lighting dependent. Harsh light= harsh edges. In this one I wanted to have soft light feeling to it. Another reason relates to the density of the object. If I would make the edges hard wouldn't that make the face look more geometric and more solid instead of soft and fleshy?

Thanks for your comments/feedback! I really apreciate it!

[Ville_S]

this was supposed to be a COW (Titan warbeast) work but unfortunately it seems I missed the deadline.

WIP

[Ville_S]

update

[Ville_S]

yet another update.
Man, I really got intopainting this one. Have to quit for now since I really have more important things to work on.

C&C always welcome!

[Ville_S]

Done. Didn't turn out a s good as I thought/hoped.

C&C still most welcome.

[Satu]

I like it! Though I actually like the colors in the first wip (when its not all that red) more than in the finished work

[Ville_S]

Satupeikko: Thanks! And yeah I thin your right. I have this real problem when painting and that is I tend to follow what feels good/right and sometimes it's quite difficult to distinguish between what is right and what is simply novel. And when I "discover" something novel like let's say burning hot red metal look I tend to go overboard with it and abuse it.

Needed a break from the other stuff and decided to try and salvage tthis thing. Revisions revisions revisions.

[Satu]

Looking better now! I think the darkness you added makes it also "fit" a little bit more to the foreground. And the smoke looks more natural now. I know really well what you mean about sometimes getting a little "over-exited" about painting something. What I've learned (at least when painting in oils) that sometimes it is useful to take a pause from painting and look it from farther away. Then you can see it it kind of with different perspective and see more easily what is right and what is wrong with it.

When do we get to see these other stuff of yours? I would love to see more from you!

[Ville_S]

randomness and a baby dino.

[Ville_S]

some quick and messy studies drawn from refs.

Satupeikko: Yeah I know exactly what you mean. I call it artists blindess. And yes, if I were any wiser I really would take a break on occasion. But there's always that one more brushstroke...it's just really hard to quit.


*When do we get to see these other stuff of yours? I would love to see more *from you!

You mean fantasy stuff? I don't know. Now that you mention it I have hardly any from imagination stuff in my sketchbook. Maybe I should take a break from all of these studies and draw some fun stuff. We'll see.

[Ville_S]

some random creatures...

[Ville_S]

Todays warmup (humans from ref and random robot from imagination) and Edelfelt study I started last night because I couldn't sleep.

[Ville_S]

just stuff...

[Satu]

Oo so many drawings appeared here since I last viewed, really good job, and keep up the pace! The purple creature looks cute I also like your Edelfelt study and the robot thingy you posted on you last post. The colors in them are looking really good.

[Ville_S]

Morning sketches...

[Elophant]

wow. beautiful stuff right here! The lines are awsome .. and you got a great sense of colours! love it

[Ville_S]

You know the days when your just on FIRE! Everything works out just awesome and your just producing stuff like a machine. Well...this wasn't one of those days.
Every single line/brush stroke is just pain can't seem to get anything right today.

first two are quick environment sketches from imagination and last is speedpaint from ref.