Diary of a Mad Black Artist

[Ghast]

NEW STUFF STARTS ON PAGE 3

Well, for lack of a witty one liner to start this off, a straight up intro is gonna have to do. I'm an artist/cellist in his second semester of freshman year lookin to get his Bachelors degree in illustration minoring in animation. I'm hoping to get into the animation industry or work as a conceptual artist for games or film (still keeping the music alive of course).

I've been alternating my main focus between art and music a lot since high school. One year music, next year art, and back and forth. I love both equally. BUT! Since that magical time of applying for internships and jobs is around the corner, I'm putting in 200% when it comes to drawing. I'm slowly trying to get used to drawing with a tablet, but getting a strong base is my biggest concern, so majority traditional for now!

But other than that, I'm just looking for some good critique and to improve as much as I can. So by all means, rip me a proverbial new one

[Leo_7]

hey thanks for stopping by my sketchbook Ghast. That portrait looks really nice, good luck with your career goals and keep up the hard work.

[Ghast]

some gesture drawings from last week (10, 45, and 30 min). This was the model's first time but he did an incredible job. Definitely looking forward to seeing him again

[Ghast]

A homework study of Paul Cadmus' works (the self portrait from earlier was part of the same assignment), and a christmas card from last year I made for my old music teacher (the portrait's of Rostropovich for you music lovers)

[Domaz]

i like your start, Like i mentioned before on other sketchbook i admire people who use all kinds of different media and tools to work on their sketches if they go manual. Even if it's digital. Going to keep an eye on your work. Keep it up yourself as well

[Ghast]

More stuff from the past few weeks. The foreshortened self portrait was one of the first assignments we got (January I think) so I think I have been improving portrait wise

The rest were gestures and color/light studies. That model was god awful for the record. Didn't keep still at all, couldn't keep time, and to top it off he reeked of BO...Its a good day when I walk in and see a different model lol

[Falchion]

Excellent start. Keep it up!

[purplegoat]

Ghast - I see you are focusing mostly on traditional media which is looking good! Your figures have a lot of personality to them. I'm looking forward to seeing more from you!

[PeteJ]

Your stuff looks very good.
But there is something about the eyes of the 2 black guy painting. They both look a little disorted so you might wanna double check them

[rupam]

A very nice start! Indeed you're going good; i look forward to seeing more of your work. Best.

[Ghast]

Thanks guys. nice to have the extra motivaiton

PeteJ: yeah i noticed. Faces looking up kill me. By the way they're self portraits, thus, like myself, they are black

[Falchion]

Well, you know the spiel: Practice some more after you think you've practiced enough. It took me a few years to get some of the trickier angles of the face.

[tronrobot]

great portrait, i dig it

[Ghast]

some 10 and 30 sec gestures from this morning. Some are posemaniacs and the rest are from this awesome gesture tool I found the other day.

I figure since I am busy as hell with school and don't draw as much as I'd like to admit (in art school no less) just squeezing in some quick gestures is better than nothing.

Heres the link for the gesture tool too: http://www.pixelovely.com/tools/gesture.html

[RyanRyan]

Anything less than a minute feels to me like I'm not picking up any structural elements, I suggest you try taking a little more time with the gestures. I find 90 seconds is the sweet spot.

Peas and good luck!

[Kuroyue]

These studies are looking good! I must say, Rostropovich looks like he's going 'yo, dawg'.

[Rikitango]

awesome portraits bro, and thanks for commenting on my sketchbook
ill try keep what you said in mind.

[TheGeek]

Like your sketchbook, keep going !

[Ghast]

I'm ashamed of my lack of posting, but despite aspiring to do it on a near daily basis, College takes precedence. BUT! Being at school for art means I have kept working.

heres a couple of HW assignments from figure drawing. Hands, feet, and a master copy. I'm quite pleased with both

[NinoCencini]

wow the last two look awesome.. the portrait is cool but the hands/feet are great.. it's so hard to get it right but you nailed it.. big improvement from the last post to this one.. keep it up man..

also, this last one is a copy from what painting?
cheers

[p sage]

Good work

[Ghast]

Alright, summers here, freshman years done, summer course complete, and damn it I'm gonna see improvement in the next 3 months if it kills me. I'm trying to get over my fear of fucking up when I draw, which defeats the purpose of me keeping a sketchbook. Thus I'm givin this thread a second try, because honestly, if people can post daily here and become fantastic in a few years time than damn it so can I

So here we go...my first attempt a a quick caricature...Rocky Horror anyone?

[Ghast]

didn't have the time to post yesterday so heres some gestures from today and yesterday. this paper is too big to scan so i apologize for the bad pics. I noticed you really do lose it if you don't keep up with these, so a few of them are pretty shitty. 30 to 60 seconds I believe. I've also lost patience with posemaniacs, who for some reason saw the need to include a hulk model in the 30 second lineups, which results in a mass of unidentifiable muscle. So the second half if all from pixellovely

I'm shooting for 50 a day, which I clearly didn't reach either day, but being sick really doesn't help, especially when your nose likes to turn into a faucet when your on the clock...

Well, so starts the summer of improvement, little by little Any critiques and tips are always welcome!

[JFierce]

Haha, you said in the beginning to rip apart your drawings for critique but ironically as I scrolled down everything I saw was already improved upon.

Those 2 with the hands and feet and portrait are greaaat!
Lord I need to do a serious practice on hands and feet one of these days. Definitely one of the harder things to get down when drawing a figure.

[Ghast]

I am beginning to think that focusing solely on gestures and copying studies, while beneficial, isn't good for my illustrative side...I love figure drawing, but I haven't drawn anything conceptual, illustrative or that I really like to draw for a while. I think I might try scaling back on this obsessive foundation stuff or at least try mixing in stuff that I get a little more joy out of.

One of my professors said that if you find yourself smiling or laughing while doing a piece than thats probably what you love/are meant to do so pursue it. I haven't done anything that has made me smile while I work in quite a bit...i don't know maybe its this cold, but I really feel I need to take a different view about bettering my work.

anyways, a few gestures from today, 30 sec to 5/10 minutes and i random guy I sketched while I was out with a friend

[Ghast]

MAN do I feel better since my last post (lungs are still being coughed up however). Getting out and sketching in my favorite foot traffic hotspot did wonders for me. It really does get aggravating when your only source of gestures are from a monitor in a small room wedged in the corner of the house...I think I'm going to avoid the gesture programs for a bit and see what can't be done in the outside world, considering I'm biking through it for the VAST majority of the day.

Anyways, work from the past 2 days, some quick portraits of old chess players that sat next to me, some street performers/homeless people, a dog and some bridgeman hands. I don't even know what the doodles are lol

[Ghast]

Ugh...SO close to uploading something before midnight...anyways not too many interesting folk out compared to Saturday's drawings but I DID manage to catch a guy playing a herdy-gerdy. He was the highlight of today...

Other than that some 20 minute studies from several figure drawing sessions I took during a summer course a few weeks ago. A little improvement from earlier I think and of course, last but not least, Darth Maul in a Kimono

[SteelCobra]

Thanks for the comment, reading your first post you sound a lot like me. I'm still having a hard time splitting my time between art and music, mostly because I play in a band that's just starting to play a few festivals, and although I don't think it will ever be a career I love it so much I can't say no to the other guys in the band every time they ask if we can play a gig.

Your studies are looking good, just keep rocking it, would love to see some digital stuff.

[Dayle]

Hey man, thanks for visiting my sketchbook, its great for motivation! I am really impressed with your work... the 30 second gesture linework is really great, I like how you show the line for the eyes. Look forward to seeing more stuff, oh, I think your portraits are very good too!

[Ghast]

Well apart from a mental breakdown of artistic origin last night, not much to report. I still don't feel I'm working nearly enough everyday, so I think I'll try drawing a little earlier in the day which will give me more time anyways.

Work wise, we have a plague doctor underpainting (charcoal on canvas) from last night that was VERY abrupt. pretty much said FUCKIT I want to paint a plague doctor, so hopefully this will be one of many more finished works which I really never do outside of school. And today an unreferenced demon I did out of boredom. slowly but surely I WILL see improvement this summer