Just another study group

[mywolverine]

Introduce yourself!
Explain what do you want to learn here, what do you expect from participating in this group.

Hi everyone, my names is Yohan m. columna, im hispanic, 18 years old live in pennsilvania, united states.I have been drawing for real for 2 years now and its seems that im the worst here but im going to get better thats why im here, right? better start now than never start at all.

Point out your most important strengths and weaknesses. Try to be honest, fair, but brutal if you feel so.

My strengths its that i would practice as mush as necessary and i would follow and try any tips or tutorial that you might offer me, and see if it works, my weakness its that i change a lot, one day im mihgt be doing gesture get tired and change to anatomy or anything, most important i cant get bored doing somehting or i would change it.
and sometimes i get discourage because i see that everyone is good and i try so hard and cant never create those masterpieces that ou guys make.

Write a thing or two about your favourite themes and/subjects. Things you like to draw the most.

My goal is to be a disney animator. Sometimes i draw anime, others concept or anything that im good at the moment. haha

Visit at least one other member’s sketchbook and point out his/her most important strengths and weaknesses (make your crit in this forum!). Be constructive. Feel free to do this for multiple/all the members (including me )

To:metalhead3

I see your doing you gesture drawing and you are doing great but i would say that your sketches are a bit to dirty u might want to stop erasing so much maybe thats your problem, the cleaner the nicer. keep it up and keep it clean. your doing good

Create your influence map. You can find a template and examples here but feel free to create your very own version.



and about the assigments should i post them all here or should i make a skethbook and poste it there or what do i do plz first time that i have ever done this.

[Telephonoscope]

Assignment Zero:

Explain what do you want to learn here, what do you expect from participating in this group.
Generally I'd just like to know about art inside out and upside down. I'm fascinated with so many aspects of the arts, even the ones I don't like. Because, to be honest, I don't see how anyone can like some of the stuff out there, so I'd like to find out what it is that people like about it.

I'm hoping this group will help me to better what skills I have and help me realize what skills I don't have. I've been learning on my own right now, and without someone pointing out my mistakes, I really don't know what else I need to study.

Point out your most important strengths and weaknesses. Try to be honest, fair, but brutal if you feel so.
Strengths: I honestly don't know if I have any strengths yet. Most of the time I think my stuff looks like crap.

Weakness: I have a lot of them, but my #1 pet peeve is that my stuff is too pretty. I've really tried to get away from the "perfectness" and cuteness of the people animals in some manga, but I can't seem to draw anything that looks rough or wrong to me. I'll intentionally set out to draw something that is not pretty, and I keep adjusting it until it is.

Write a thing or two about your favourite themes and/subjects. Things you like to draw the most.
I draw faces the most. Faces staring straight ahead with enigmatic expressions. I hate it. Otherwise I draw a lot of dreary fantastical scenes.

Visit at least one other member’s sketchbook and point out his/her most important strengths and weaknesses (make your crit in this forum!). Be constructive. Feel free to do this for multiple/all the members (including me )
I guess I'll review Zerg Rush since he was the most recent poster when I came across this thread. Pardon me if I go about this all wrong.

I like where Zerg's art is going, but I think that he moves to making bold outlines of his sketches before he is ready to. I think he needs to forget the entire form and really concentrate on just getting the pieces to fit together fluidly and with movement. Even if that causes his sketches to be caricatures of themselves at first, it will probably help him to realize that his art can be a mess to him and still be lovely to everyone else. In fact, I need to apply this review to my own art!

[ashess]

telephonoscope, what, no sketchbook?

anyway, here's my first batch of hands.

[Telephonoscope]

@ashess: I do have a sketchbook, I just haven't put it into my signature yet. I just relied on the little scribbly dude under the thanks count. I guess I should get on that! oops.

It's fixed now.

It isn't fixed. I added a signature in User CP, but I don't know how to get it to show in the thread. Help?

I love your hands, you look like you're really comfortable with sketching and don't worry too much about any errors you might make. I'd love to have that ability!

Here are my first four hands. I can't seem to make hands look decent unless I make them super detailed and large. I think my next batch I'm going to draw the hands farther away so that I can't make them detailed. Also, the thumbs I drew look like alien appendages. I'd love to have suggestions on how to fix them!

[vzheng]

Okay I had some spare time to draw again, and it seems I got my first criticism! I can´t express my gratitude for Telephonoscope, but let you know that I am here to help you in anything you would need.

I might have misunderstood your criticism, but you can help me realize where I understood wrongly if you point out the mistakes in the attachment´s picture.

Going back to the first assignment: I was surfing 4chan, specifically /ic/ to find resources to help me get in the field of digital painting when I found the picture above. I didn´t realized I was drawing it until I was completely absorbed in it. In the end I tried to use all the knowledge I could, adding Telephonoscope´s critque.

For tools I used a HB pencil, eraser, a (tk 4600 faber castell) clutch pencil with a lead of 2B.

1. From Telephonoscope´s suggestion, I first tried to put everything together, so I from that I went to the basics of the picture. Began scratching the drawing, starting from the background. Tried to focused on the positions of every line.

2. Left the background intact, basically sketched the cat, focusing on the fluidity of its movement and giving a fair form. Stressed on the placement of the cat in the picture, referencing from the position of the building´s lines.

3. Highligted the dark areas and gave bit of detail.

4. Gave as much detail as I could and darkened the lines. Didn´t knew how to draw the cat´s fur however.

So thats it I guess, If anyone know where to find a video to the basics of digital painting I would be glad to hear. For now feel free to say how pathetic is my drawing, I will appreciate the words.

[Telephonoscope]

I think the method you took this time, on working on the basics and form of the cat before diving into the outlines was the right one. The cat looks more alive than the drawings in your sketchbook from before. Congratulations!

As to a digital painting site with basics, perhaps http://www.ctrlpaint.com/ would help?

[Diarum]

there is a bunch of digital tutorials in my thread called "tutorials" in my signature

[Little-Maiden]

@Vzheng Construction is good, try and make the images smaller next time btw, for those of us who have a medieval internet connection speed

Critic-whise though, its good, try shading it and bringing it to life. Also use a two-point perspective so you can check and place the feet of the cat correctly.

@Telephonoscope

You Shouldn't be worrying about detail. No matter how awesomely detailed you make the hands, if you get the construction wrong it'll still look odd. So far from what I see, your hands are good, the 2nd one I think looks a bit odd due to the foreshortening.

@Ashess

Are you primarily working in water colours? I think having a good idea down in pencil first before adding watercolour over it will help solidify your work more- I mean unless you're going for a quick gestural watercolour study in which case by all means continue

-----

Here are --- uh? 10 hands (more I think) another 10 ill bring up tomorrow evening. These were around 10 - 15 minutes each.

[Telephonoscope]

@Little-Maiden I agree entirely about the detail issue. For some reason I can't seem to make anything look "right" unless I cram it full of detail. Do you know of any ideas on how to let a brain let go of the detail so that it can concentrate more on the form? Someone suggested Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain to me, and I've been slowly working through it, and I've already seen a bit of improvement. I'm always open to more suggestions though! And thank you for your critique.

[Little-Maiden]

@Little-Maiden I agree entirely about the detail issue. For some reason I can't seem to make anything look "right" unless I cram it full of detail. Do you know of any ideas on how to let a brain let go of the detail so that it can concentrate more on the form? Someone suggested Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain to me, and I've been slowly working through it, and I've already seen a bit of improvement. I'm always open to more suggestions though! And thank you for your critique.

Try doing drawings in cubes. Like Cambiasso was famous for. On top of helping you with foreshortening, theres not much detail you can put into a cube since its readability comes completely from its construction and rules of perspective.

[thisby]

I just wanted to stop in and apologize for being so inactive lately! I have been doing stuff... but mostly I have been overwhelmed with life the past few weeks. I'm glad to see you guys are still working and making progress. I will post again when I finish my assignment, just wanted to let you guys know I'm still here.

[Telephonoscope]

Try doing drawings in cubes. Like Cambiasso was famous for. On top of helping you with foreshortening, theres not much detail you can put into a cube since its readability comes completely from its construction and rules of perspective.

I hadn't heard of Cambiasso before, so after a bit of googling I found Luca Cambiasi/Cambiaso is that who you are speaking of?

Also, welcome back thisby.

[ashess]

@ telephonoscope: heh. Im 35 now.. I've been drawing since day one. I guess I'm used to thinks turning out other then planned. about the thumbs. if you make the base point down and away from the fingers I think they''d look better.
I put some extra thought in thumbs in these, to show what I mean. hope it helps.

@little maiden: ye I had that suggestion before but my art teacher used to be very amendent about not drawing before painting because you take the freedom out of your painting. still, maybe I should give it a try once. nice hands. getting a little flatter down on the page. I think you could give a little more thoughtto direction in those.

[Little-Maiden]

@ Ashess

Yeah I noticed that as well after posting, I got lazy with the directional shadows I guess.

Heres another batch. 7 Hands I believe it makes 20 for task 1. I'll start task 2 now provided I don't get lost playing CIV 5 again.

The one on the bottom right was the last I did. It came out horribly from imagination without any ref. *sigh*

[Telephonoscope]

Here are the rest of my hands for task one.

I'm going to be honest and say that I didn't think I'd see any improvement after drawing just 20 hands, but let me tell you that I was zooming towards the end. Of course, by zooming I mean that it only took me 15-30 minutes to draw a hand at the end instead of an hour like at first.

The suggestion to draw blocks was a big help! I modified it a bit and was drawing blocks, triangles, and cylinders *gasp!* and I feel that it really helped me to figure out the form of the hands. On the other hand, my thumbs and perspective is still all kinds of effed up. Practice makes perfect though, right?

Now to start task 2.

As to critiques of other peoples hands, I'm so worn out from looking at hands (and allergies, ugh) that I'm honestly not sure if I could tell what was wrong or right with them right now. Sorry.

Edit: If 13 & 14 look weird, it's because it was a picture of a little kid holding a babies hand. Thought I'd learn how to draw those too while I was at it.

[Little-Maiden]

Note: i'll try and do assignments every Sat but if someone has a desire to do one just go ahead and post and ill follow along.

Assignment 21

Lets get back to bone structures. Specifically, the skull and ribcage.

TASK 1:

Draw 20 heads using a constructive approach. The features dont need to go on or even be accurate if you do place them. Try and get the "head" right. Use simple shapes and connect said heads to a simple rib-cage.

TASK 2

Draw the skull and connect it to the ribcage. Try and be accurate, more often then not, construction falls apart when connecting two parts together. Pay attention the bone structure and what overlaps what.

Have fun!

[thisby]

here are my first 10 hands for last week's assignment. it didn't even occur to me that it was the day of our next assignment so looks like i will be doing double assignments this week i love the assignment for this week because i'm already working on loomis studies, woo~
telephono- i adore hands 18 and 19, they have so much personality and i think you captured them quite accurately. hand 20 looks a bit off, i'm thinking the back of the hand opposite the palm is a little squished although i'm not positive.
everybody's studies are looking good!

[Telephonoscope]

Thank you, Thisby. #20 was particularly hard because of the perspective. The hand was resting at the side of an older man on a park bench, and I just wasn't able to catch that distancing of the palm and arm in comparison to the fingers. Obviously I need more work on perspective.

Your hands are great, btw. #3 is a little off. I think perhaps the arch of the palm doesn't fit the flatness of the top of the hand... and perhaps the fingers are a little too short.

[vzheng]

Wait, the heads must use references or not?

[Little-Maiden]

Wait, the heads must use references or not?

You're thinking features, not heads.

You don't really need a reference to draw a head- even when going for a likeness most artists i've seen start with the basic construction (sphere, centre line etc.) So I would say use reference if you like but it should not be necessary.

remember, its the head you want to get Not the features.

By this i mean everything should read, placement of the eyes/mouth etc etc. you can get extremely complex and show curves etc. See Ron Lemen's approach for example. Or you could always use the classic Loomis approach, although I have some trouble with Loomis' style of construction.

Enjoy

[Sushy]

Great assignment LM! Construction is very important. ^^;
Here are my hands studies from previous week, I am still working on the illustration but it is not going as fast as I hoped.

[Telephonoscope]

Assignment 20, Task 2: Painting of hands. I used the chance to experiment with skin tones since I've never painted skin before. It was pretty fun (when I wasn't frustrated).

[ashess]

well, here's my heads. it may not seem like anything diff from what I usually do, but I definitely focussed on the head's structure. so.. yeah.

[ashess]

oh right herer's the structured one w/out a model. ugly basterd.

[Little-Maiden]

Skull connected to ribcage- I used various references of skulls and ribcages and drew based on what I knew and what I saw.

I'll post another assignment tonight, unless someone else has something else.

Also the hand painting from last week:

[ashess]

I have one^^

Assignment 22
Feet!
no, they are quite possibly harder then hands. but fun too!

TASK 1:

draw a foot with it's bone structure; use ref. there's a lot of bones in there
make a front/back/ dorsal & medial view.
heres some ref: http://www.bartleby.com/107/63.html
http://www.bartleby.com/107/66.html
TASK 2

draw 10 feet, in some way connected to the ground.. but they have to have weith resting on them! (or pushing/pulling if they are in motion)

[vzheng]

Hey people, I was pretty busy this week, so I am a little bit delayed on my assignment. I´ll finish the rest of 3 heads+skull/rib study tomorrow. Assignment done with Wacom tablet because I am trying to dominate its pen tool. The first 3 or 4 without reference and the others with reference.

Need help particularly on the 12 and 13, I can´t seem to get´em right (They are on Loomi´s book). Ribcage was messed, tried to memorize the numbers 7-12-5 first, I´ll catch on the detailed work and the study of the vertebral column tomorrow.

[vzheng]

Will post the skull+ribs study later, which will be done in pencil, as I find it difficult to detail in Wacom.
Edit: I commited the mistake of reading Little-Maiden´s suggestion too quickly and jumped into Loomis. Just saw the approach for drawing heads by Ron Lemen. Well what´s done is done, For this assignment I´ll use Loomis and for personal studies will use Lemen.

[calin4thewin]

Hey all, what a fun and useful thread you have here

So here goes:

1. Introduce yourself!
I'm Calin, 30 years old, I live in Romania. I just finished the first year in art school, I'm studying to be a painter. Now that school's over and I'm on vacation, I think this is the best time to put in the time and work on the fundamentals. I like that this thread already has many assignments I can choose from, gives me some nice structure, which is exactly what I need

2. Explain what do you want to learn here, what do you expect from participating in this group.
I want to get feedback on what I do, and I want to use the clear assignments listed here. Having all this free time and no clear method is not the best way to improve skills. Working on something specific is much better, so seems I found the right thread

3. Point out your most important strengths and weaknesses. Try to be honest, fair, but brutal if you feel so.
Strengths - no idea really, for now I'm gonna say it't the determination to put in time every day and work at improving my painting skills. I really want to make this work, and keeping at it is the only way to get there.
Weaknesses - lack of structure, not the best planning (of personal time) so that creates a lot of wasted time, slow progress.

4. Write a thing or two about your favourite themes and/subjects. Things you like to draw the most.
Well my interests are quite wide and variable, they shift a lot. Right now I'm interested in still life paintings, as I consider them to be the easiest thing to "crack" - that is, improve to a sufficient level, that I can make good paintings and actually sell them. My models here are Duane Keiser, Jos van Riswick and a few other daily painters. More generally speaking I'm interested in psychedelic art, surrealism and post-apocalyptic stuff (Mad Max, Stalker, Fallout, etc).

5. Visit at least one other member’s sketchbook and point out his/her most important strengths and weaknesses (make your crit in this forum!). Be constructive. Feel free to do this for multiple/all the members (including me )
I'm gonna choose metalhead3's SB, and say the following: Strengths - A lot of effort, it's great that you keep at it, and it really shows, in progress. Also very good that you use specific courses to work, like Vilppu - I'm gonna get on board with that one as well What I'd look to improve if I were you, is line quality, that is focusing on more control of the pencil. Use a lighter hand, and start considering values as well, not just contours. Perhaps do the warm-up exercises on a larger paper, try larger ellipses and organic shapes, to get used to long flowing lines, from the elbow not the wrist.

Create your influence map. You can find a template and examples here but feel free to create your very own version.

Here it is, now I'm off to choose an assignment to work on

[vzheng]

Hey there calin4thewin, welcome to this study group, hope you will stay for long. I took the freedom of stalking your sketchbook . You have way more experience than I do in painting and drawing, and your works are amazingly well done (so envious).

Here´s the last part of the assignment of the skull and ribs. Off to do the assignment of the feets.