Don't be afraid! Come on in!

[<3.]

I just wanna progress!!!

My more immediate goals are to get a stronger portfolio of ink, pencil, and digital works. With a focus on character conceptualization.

My long term are to use the portfolio to start free lance illustration.

I'm terrible with color right now, but I think my strengths are human anatomy, and gestures, I can do strong portraits but I'm hit and miss getting my work to resemble the model 100%.
I intend to become stronger all around but I still want to focus on human anatomy and character concepts.

Here's some things to get us started a few studies.

[Jeff Bartzis]

Nice start! dont be afraid to go to the extremes of colour and shade when doing studies.

[carakhan]

Exactly what I was going to say.
Don't be afraid to use your color picker to see how close you are either. I learned a lot by using the color picker to see how far off my value/saturation was, and eventually you can just see the right color and put it down immediately.

[p sage]

Study value before studying color.

Trying to get drawings to look "just like the model" is also a huge oversimplification. There's a lot you have to get a grasp of in order to make a 2D drawing or painting read.

If your long term goal is illustration, representative drawings may be OK. But if you want to be able to bring artistic interpretation to your work and to draw from imagination, you'll need more tools.

[<3.]

okay... thanks for the input it all makes a lot of sense.

I've taken some shots from my sketchbook that I'll be trying to upload before I go to bed.

@p sage
I mean I miss likeness. I understand as an artist we have so much more control over what is seen than a camera might alone. though the anatomy is sound generally you can't really look at my drawing and the model and say they look alike.

[<3.]

sketches from observation

a few character concepts sketches for long past ChOWs I didn't enter.

[<3.]

Doing 2 things, Testing to see if this will display my images. and posting another attempt at a land scape.

[<3.]

a few of my character concepts





a few lame cake action poses

[<3.]

I JUST GOT ENGAGED! skip-a-dee-do

and now I'm trying to draw again. Please aid me with crits.

I tried using warm colors for the bear and I was going to go with really cool colors for the water and stuff... its still a WIP but I'm working... but about an hour, and hour and a half into it.

[JakehC]

when doing an environment try to think of layers of composition. try to figure out what makes things appear bright or dark. These are all relative. if something is really bright its usually by relationship. and vice versa.

try doing some black and white paintings!

keep going. great progress here!

[jbrown67]

yep, good work! Black and white paintings will be good to get your values down! You have some good sketching skills, just keep working on your digital stuff and don't be afraid to spend a few hours on something! It's all worth it. Looking forward to more! Keep it up

[<3.]

@Aryeh & jbrown

Okay I'll start focusing on black and white paintings a little more. I've always had an issue with not going dark enough or light enough. (especially with my pencil stuff) I guess a lot of that is transitioning into my painting as well. With pencil it's because I leave a lot of the paper white and as you said Aryeh by comparison...

In any case I'll definitely be uploading more. I'm going to try and at least do one of these every day for the next 75 days. I've got to fit it into the schedule.

[<3.]

I REALLY want to be an artist so bad. Life and a lack of motivation kind of slowed my progress. I feel like I'm reaching a point where if I don't do it now I never will. I guess that I'll be using that fear as motivation.

It's been about a year since my last post here and I haven't drawn all that much; a little here and there. I can see (or at least I feel like) my art has regressed considerably. I will not let that phase me though.

I've started a new blog, with it I aim to focus not just on my growth as an artist and comic book writer, but also the journey there.

[<3.]

Having lots of trouble posting my images the way I want with the image uploader... Here's a few things I've done the past few days. Need to work on matching value a little close still.

[<3.]

Lets see if this works...


work from the last two days. put a limit of two hours on each so I can get other work done.




Should I try and bring my studies closer to fruition and remove a strict time limit? I want to start building a stronger portfolio (which won't be hard because I don't have one)

[<3.]

few more studies


realized I can't paint faces well so...

Started working on that.

[<3.]

Still working hard!


More face studies. This one was a quick 45 minutes to an hour.


My work in progress... I need some help on this one. I know the face is off the anatomy is whacked but I can't put my finger on what's wrong. Is the face too extruded?

[Little-Maiden]

Thanks for dropping by the SB!

You've got a good start going here and the only important thing at this stage is being consistent. Theres *alot* to learn but don't get confused by what you have to learn. Just choose something and focus on it, then move on. Bit by bit.

Good luck!

[<3.]

Little Maiden thank you very much for the comment; helping me to stay motivated.

Not too too much these past few days, focused on work and being a good father. should have a lot more free time the rest of this week. I have to get better!

Observation


Imagination...............

[wutangclam]

thansk for checking out my SB ur work is amazing. i love your b/w pictures!

[<3.]

Trying to do 1 portrait a day at least. Gonna see if I can do another before bed tonight

[<3.]

Trying color from reference... hard stuff. Gotta work much much harder if I want to progress fast enough to make a living doing this!!

[<3.]

My Tablet died. Computer doesn't even recognize the device.

D:









Died mid way through this last piece. Guess its back to pencil and paper till I get this issue sorted out. I don't know how frequently I'll post though.

[FROZ3N]

google it, mine did the same thing after some updates, You may just need an update or to reload the drivers from the Wacom site. Anyway, your stuff is pretty dope.
keep posting!

[<3.]

looks like it was a false alarm. The usb port in my tablet was dead. Fortunately the second one is still working. I have to take better care of my baby. (I've named her tabitha)


Whelp more art quick one here. I'm going to spend most of the day today looking for a late night serving or bartending job... so there probably won't be a huge update in the immediate future...

I think I just got lucky on this one. it reads well small...

[<3.]

Self Portrait. A lot of color picker
But I'm learning I guess......... skin tones are so difficult for me to wrap my brain around.

2hrs


4hrs



Still have a bit more I'm wearing a plaid shirt though so that's gonna have to wait till morning.

[Ntropii]

I also think gesture is your strong suit. Some nice designs too. One think I would do is practice building forms from simple shapes and drawing contour lines of complex shapes.

The colour picker is a double-edged sword isn't it. I also admit to using for quickly grabbing a colour sometimes. But of course a single pixel can't describe the complexity of light with regard to what is happening in a certain area of an image. So for me it's a failing point.

I'd go looking for sources of colour theory and practice mixing colours.

Good luck, keep at it!!

[Hayden Zammit]

The studies are looking good. keep it up.

[<3.]

@ntroppi
Thank you very much for your kind words and advice. I think I'm going to step back into black and white value studies again to help my eyes and brain understand light and tone better.
I have all but ignored gesture and it really is one of my favorite things to do when I have a pen in my hand. Thanks for taking the time to visit my sketchbook.

@Hayden
Thank you very much for stopping by. Your kind words make it easy to be motivated.

A few studies over the last few days. the second is my a piece I'm finishing up for my sisters birthday tomorrow. Been having a little trouble getting in "the mood" to draw, I'm really forcing it, I've gotta force myself to do more.

[<3.]

done with this one.


no color picker I think I'm still going to light with my values....