Just another study group

**Little-Maiden** · June 29th, 2011, 05:11 AM

Originally Posted by SirEvil

Since there isn't a current assignment, I think i will try to organize it myself. But first my completed shading on the hands. Not gonna worry about the sleeves.
Attachment 1265964

These weekly assignments are relatively simple to complete in a day. They are mainly studies etc. and shouldn't be approached as a "weekly" thing. For future assignments I believe alot more of us should focus on basics as shown in Loomis, Bridgeman and other prelim art books. We can't barrel ahead with these.

**Falling Up** · June 29th, 2011, 09:40 AM

I decided to go ahead and give digital painting one last go today, and it's probably some of the best fun I've had in a while. The product isn't all that great for over an hour and a half of work, but as my first environment I am extremely happy with it. Noah Bradley's tutorial on Youtube was the biggest help during the process - he showed me how to start.

Anyway, this is task 2 of assignment one. Probably should have documented it and made it task one, but I didn't think I would keep working on it for longer than twenty minutes.

Kill it with crit please, anything you can think of. Issues with lighting, colour, composition, ect.

**SirEvil** · June 29th, 2011, 01:00 PM

Originally Posted by Falling Up

I decided to go ahead and give digital painting one last go today, and it's probably some of the best fun I've had in a while. The product isn't all that great for over an hour and a half of work, but as my first environment I am extremely happy with it. Noah Bradley's tutorial on Youtube was the biggest help during the process - he showed me how to start.

Anyway, this is task 2 of assignment one. Probably should have documented it and made it task one, but I didn't think I would keep working on it for longer than twenty minutes.

Kill it with crit please, anything you can think of. Issues with lighting, colour, composition, ect.

I do like this falling! How about trying to sharpen the image, making in more realistic instead of so abstract. Blend your colors together a bit more and i think you will have a beautiful landscape.

**_Token_** · June 30th, 2011, 05:36 PM

Introduce yourself
Hey guys i'm Barry a.k.a. Token. I am currently a college student. I am a self taught artist looking to improve my skills. I have been drawing for awhile but decided to take it to a more serious level.

Explain what do you want to learn here, what do you expect from participating in this group
I want to learn to use my imagination. I can draw things I see pretty well but when it comes to drawing what I see in my inagination I get lost. I am hoping to not only improvein all areas but to meet great people along the way.

Point out your most important strengths and weaknesses. Try to be honest, fair, but brutal if you feel so
I don't really know where my strengths are at this point. my weaknesses consist of lack of knowledge of anatomy, landscapes, and drawing from imagination.

Write a thing or two about your favourite themes and/subjects. Things you like to draw the most
I love drawing a lot of sci fi stuff. Aliens and robots are things I tend to do pretty well with.

metalhead3 The only thing I can say is keep up the studies. Your figures and faces are coming out very well.

**Hayden Zammit** · July 4th, 2011, 12:32 AM

If you guys don't have an assignment for the week, then maybe Little-Maiden's idea is a good one.

Maybe do something like 25 heads following the Loomis method. No actual feature details, and then pick maybe 5 or so out of the 25 and use those to continue building a finished head with detail.

**KittyDew** · July 8th, 2011, 11:50 PM

Introduce yourself!
Hello, I'm Tiffany I'm a designer for a children's website. I work mostly in vector graphics on Adobe Flash. I'm a very social drawer, I attend a "Drink and Draw" (which is just drawing at a bar with buddies) every Tuesday when I can. If I'm by myself I get unmotivated, which is why I'm here. I love character design and I desperately need to work on my backgrounds.

Explain what do you want to learn here, what do you expect from participating in this group.
I want to learn some spiffy digital painting techniques. I also hope that some fresh eyes on my art will help me learn where I can improve. I hope to make some friends and to have some fun drawing with a group of people.

Point out your most important strengths and weaknesses. Try to be honest, fair, but brutal if you feel so.
My strengths I'd say are character design, cute things, design in general, vector graphics, I have a pretty solid grasp on anatomy (not saying it's the best, but I'm not struggling with it either), and my ability to mimic almost any art style.

Weaknesses are definitely backgrounds and environments, my art is a little flat, subject matter is not dynamic, anything gritty or scary, digital painting, animals, and mechanical objects (like robots, guns, cars).

Write a thing or two about your favourite themes and/subjects. Things you like to draw the most.
I love drawing characters be it mine or other peoples.

Visit at least one other member’s sketchbook and point out his/her most important strengths and weaknesses

_Token_ Well, since you already know your weaknesses, I'll let you in on your strengths. ;D

You have a solid and dramatic light source in every piece, which can be a rare thing to find sometimes. You have an excellent painting process in planning out your pictures, and blocking in shadows. I like your armor designs, and you are good at shading metals.

One tip I would give though: Don't be afraid to experiment with colors for shadows. Shadows are the opposite color of their light source, so with the case of the sun which is yellow, shadows would have a purple hue and highlights a yellow one. ^_^

Create your influence map

**Sushy** · July 9th, 2011, 05:25 AM

Welcome, KittyDew! You have a nice sketchbook and picked some cool pictures for your influences.

We have been a little inactive here lately so I thought it would be a good idea to post an assignment again. Maybe you have tried to do some drawings of Hayden's suggestion, that would have been awesome.
Now it is time for a new assignment I think. And this time I think we should focus on something that is often forgotten by most artists: environments. We have had a lot of character-focused assignments, but if you are not able to place your characters in an interesting environment and with a certain mood, you probably are missing out something important.
So let's study some environments

Assignment #19
Environments

Task 1
Study some environments, try to focus on one for at least half an hour. The number of environment studies you do is entirely up to you.

Try to catch the "mood" of the picture.

Task 2
Try to make an environment picture from imagination. If you find it hard you can also just use reference and slightly change it.

Resources
http://www.terragalleria.com/ has many environmental pictures.

Just a quick note: it is fine to have characters on your environments, but they should not be the focus in the picture.

**KittyDew** · July 9th, 2011, 02:39 PM

Thanks Sushy!

Ok, here is part one of assignment 19. We'll call this my starting point. ^_^;;

Quick study. I spent about an hour on it. I might do some more later if I have time.

Edit: Ok, had time to make another:

I spent about 40 minutes on this one.

**Xanthis89** · July 11th, 2011, 06:17 AM

Is it too late to jump in?
I'd like to join

Is this group inactive? no posts since the 9th of July? :/

**Sushy** · July 11th, 2011, 06:43 AM

You can just join in, Xanthis!

And we are not inactive since we do have an assignment for this week (number 19).

Edit: here is one of my environment studies for this week's assignment.

**Xanthis89** · July 11th, 2011, 09:16 AM

Oh that's nice to hear

Then I'll start with assignment zero:

1.Introduce yourself!

- Hello, my Name is marlon. I'm a 22 year old Graphic Design Student from Berlin/Germany. I draw as long as I can remember mostly comic and anime stuff but I want to make at least a little change more in the concept Art direction. I'm almost self taught except for a few Illustration courses in my study.

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

- I hope that I can get feedback and a small kick in my lazy ***** to draw more and improve myself. I hope that a lot of fields will be covered like character design, environments and stuff like that.
I'm also considering to switch completely to digital for concept painting.

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

- Allright, Strength: If I'm interested in something I go almost crazy about it and collect always new informations on these themes.
Weakness: I have this little "me" inside myself that's really lazy xD
Strength: I believe that everyone can achieve his/her goals - me too - short: I think that I can get good at concept art with enough effort.
Weakness: I'm a little impatient sometimes.

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

- Uhm definately Fantasy Stuff, Creatures, Landscapes, Heroes...I want to tell stories in my drawings. I love fantasy Stuff

and...Humans...honestly I suck so badly at it ;(

5. Visit at least one other member’s sketchbook and point out his/her most important strengths and weaknesses. Be constructive. Feel free to do this for multiple/all the members

Sushy I picked yours 'cause you were the first that answered me

Here it goes: I think that you capture the mood and the pose of the people in your sketchbook really well. I can almost think of what the situation might have been. A small weakness could be the shading/blending in some of your digital drawings. I don't know exactly how you blend the colors but try to use the normal brush tool with low opacity and color picking if you're not already doing it. If you use this method, I think it will just take a little more time as practice makes perfect.

6. Create your influence map.

Here it is:

**KittyDew** · July 11th, 2011, 09:55 AM

Originally Posted by Xanthis89

Is it too late to jump in?
I'd like to join

Is this group inactive? no posts since the 9th of July? :/

No, this group is open to anyone, you just have to do the first assignment first.

Edit: Nevermind, I didn't see there was a next page. XD

**ashess** · July 11th, 2011, 11:20 AM

Hello new & old group members! Just wanted to cheer you on for keeping the group alive. I still read up regularly. And i keep drawing- i even have the 7 portrait thing about done. So i am lagging behind a bit, lol! Esp posting is taking a bit too much time right now with the uploading n stuff. But ill be back!

**Xanthis89** · July 11th, 2011, 02:27 PM

Working on Assignment 1 right now.
It's about an hour of work I try to keep it pretty loose something like speed painting. But I'm not that good at it at the moment but I'll see what you guy's say. It's still WIP.

1st image: the reference
2nd image: blocked in a back ground and the over all form of the building.
Also trying to find a value range here. Used different cloud brushes for the background and a default chalk brush and a flat round one for the building.
3rd image: Start to define the forms of the rocks and buildings.
The screenshot is pretty bad for that assignment in fact that it's so dark

**KittyDew** · July 12th, 2011, 09:43 AM

Xanthis: Nice!! I really like the atmosphere. I know it's still a WIP, but have you considered creating some custom brushes to help create some texture?

**metalhead3** · July 12th, 2011, 03:57 PM

Xanthis89: Hey this is coming along nicely[cheesy?] But anyways its the truth. Nice job starting off with the form first and building up

**Xanthis89** · July 13th, 2011, 06:39 AM

Thanks for the tips

@ kittydew: I may try to work with textured brushes. honestly I used just a chalk brush with a little texture for now. I'll post an update with a little more texture

@ metalhead3: thank you!

(what does that cheesy mean? never heard that before

)

**ashess** · July 14th, 2011, 02:32 PM

some quick reviews: Xanthis-
I really like how you kept the circle shape in here to keep the space alive. you also got the smoke pretty well. you did deviate quite a bit from the original though; espec in how you draw the smoke.

KityDew: actually, for this assignment, seeing pictures of what you studied from would have been nice too. but that wasnt in the assignment I guess.
I like the second one espec, with how you achieved debth with the dark and white haze. you could have pushed this quite a bit farther though. the first one has a nice foreground, but the back feels rushed and flat, and pushes itself on level with the front. if you could work on that a bit more I think this could be a great picture.

this is task #13, part 1. I meant there to be 7 all in different media. but, well. I havent finished any more yet so I guess I prolly wont get to it soon. also, the watercolors werent much of a succes with my son there. he played with the colors and brushes themselves first, but in the end started putting them to paper too. which I usually dont mind, but they were running wet, and kindof ruined all my work. he seemed to have a preference of putting them to the faces of what Id done too. well, I let him experiment; the drawings werent that gret to begin with

**KittyDew** · July 16th, 2011, 12:25 AM

@Ashess thank you very much for your critique!

I will definitely keep that in mind for future backgrounds.

Here is my reference picture for the jungle:
http://writingday.wikispaces.com/fil...779/Jungle.jpg

And.. I forget where I got the ref for the hawaii background. ^^;

**Sushy** · July 16th, 2011, 07:08 AM

Nice portraits ashess. Haha is your son becoming an artist this early? Maybe he should join this group

Just kidding xD

Here are my environments, the first two are from ref and the last one is from imagination...
It is also time for a new assignment. Anyone an idea for the next assignment?

**Little-Maiden** · July 16th, 2011, 11:52 AM

heres mine- Just did it today 2hrs round about and it looks like a 1hr speedpaint

Nonetheless the clouds which are mostly obscured by the tree took the most effort. I spent all the energy I had starting trying to get them right that I basically neglected the rest! arrgh

Its partly referenced from a pic I found of the Svalbrad Tundra.

**Little-Maiden** · July 16th, 2011, 12:00 PM

I think we should do a few hands since its something we all seem to want to avoid yet is intrinsically important to our progress. So the next assignment will be that!

I can't seem to work the options to increase size and stuff of text. nonetheless

ASSIGNMENT 20

Task 1:

Draw 20 hands in different angles/poses. try and do 10 of the palm side and 10 of the dorsal (back of the hand) side. Spend about 10-20mins per hand. Keep in mind that a hand is a three dimensional object. Use a reference if you want and be sure to check Bridgeman/Hogarth etc. or similar text book regarding their construction.

Task 2: Paint a painting in which "hands" are the centre of focus. This maybe just a pair of hands or a full blown illustration. The hands however MUST be the centre of focus.

Enjoy.

**mywolverine** · July 16th, 2011, 10:24 PM

Hello, im new to this page and i dont have a sketchbook to show yet, and i want to know if i can join this group cause its seems very interesting. Also if one has to show here in this page every assignment thats has been given or just show some of them or what?

thanks and if i can join i would do assigment zero as zoom as i can.

**Sushy** · July 17th, 2011, 05:40 AM

@Little-Maiden: we had an assignment about hands before (quite a long time ago) but I guess a little more practice on those still is a good idea

Thanks for making an assignment

@mywolverine: in this post some of the assignments are listed: http://conceptart.org/forums/showpos...73&postcount=2

You can also just do assignment 0 and then "jump" in right away with current assignment

**Little-Maiden** · July 17th, 2011, 09:40 AM

Originally Posted by Sushy

@Little-Maiden: we had an assignment about hands before (quite a long time ago) but I guess a little more practice on those still is a good idea

Thanks for making an assignment

Yeah I'm sure we have, but hands are hands and along with faces are the most important things in any drawing involving humans. On top of that we're gonna need alot more practice than a few hands now and then I think. I've personally been avoiding hands cause ugh they're so pretty and I draw them so ugly

But clench our teeth and press on we must.

Look forward to what you all show up with. NOW GET WORKING

**Telephonoscope** · July 17th, 2011, 09:22 PM

I'd like to join in on this, and I'm currently working on Assignment Zero. I need all the practice I can get, and I have the urge to do all of the assignments (1-19), is it alright if I post them, or would that be considered flooding the page? I don't want to annoy any one.

**vzheng** · July 17th, 2011, 11:20 PM

Hopefully everyone is still alive at this stage.
Should I start from assignment 1?

1. Introduce yourself
Victor, currently 17 years old, living in Lima, moving to a university in the States in August. Started drawing some months ago; as I had 1 year free, so I could spare some of my sleeping time to examine any reference material I could get. Before, I used to squeeze as much as possible from school´s art classes and a drawing tutor who came for 2 months or so.

2. Explain what do you want to learn here, what do you expect from participating in this group.
My ultimate goal is to learn digital drawing and painting, from characters to landscaping.

3. Point out your most important strengths and weaknesses. Try to be honest, fair, but brutal if you feel so.
Strengths: Persistent and fairly open minded. Also, took some photoshop courses.
Weaknesses: Newbie; areas unknown: perspective, coloring, composition; lazy when there is no clear objective, emotionally sensitive, short attention span and memory.

4. Write a thing or two about your favourite themes and/subjects. Things you like to draw the most.
Ok, for now the sci-fi and fantasy stuff are only limited to battlesuits, armor and helmets. Have not tried vehicles or creatures yet. Nightmares are out of the question for me now, only in my dreams however.

5. Visit at least one other member’s sketchbook and point out his/her most important strengths and weaknesses. Be constructive. Feel free to do this for multiple/all the members
Sorry guys, I still new at art, I think I shouldnt be doing this now. It would be similar to an idiot chastising an intelectual.

6. Create your influence map.
Attachments:

**Xanthis89** · July 18th, 2011, 08:14 AM

thanks for the comment ashess

Yeah the smoke isn't a 100% correct.
And I see that I get kinda stuck when it comes to detail painting.

Has anyone an advise if I should rather do the older assignments or jump straight to the new "hands" assignment?

Thank you

**ashess** · July 18th, 2011, 08:28 AM

I think it was originaply intended that you jump in with the current assignment. Btw, i think we're on to a winner here. Next week we can do feet. After that, elbows, knees, asses.. you name it!