Mister Huffington's Sketchbook - Now accepting the harshest critiques

[MrHuffer]

Hey guys, I'm a year Three Product Design student with the goal to hone my drawing skills and learn anatomy to a higher level. I've been studying some anatomy from a bunch of books since about April or May last year, since October drawing almost daily with some occasional breaks.

I received training on line, perspective and constructing solid forms from an architecture teacher for a year and a half around four years ago, and that was the time I started drawing seriously.

I think that my anatomy studies lack a certain "maturity" level. I know that until I learn I have to go for perfection and not for speed, but I don't have the motivation and the patience, so progress is kinda slow cause of that.

Issues that bother me most are some proportion problems due to lack of construction and relying more on eye alone, unnatural poses even when working from photo reference, and messy, "guessed" or "wrong" lines that cause problems with clarity and readability.

Here is some recent stuff, second and last are from imagination, rest from photo reference.

I hope that this sketchbook would act as a motivational boost and will try to draw more and better.
Comments and critique are highly welcome!

[Chelli]

Great skecthes, keep up the good owrk (:

[MrHuffer]

Thank you Chelli! =D

Here are more figure attempts from imagination, 2mm 8B lead on A5, obviously stolen idea of posed multi limbs

After scanning and flipping horizontally I noticed a lot of proportion issues, arms too long, lower legs too short and balance problems. Will go over these and try to fix them with some muscle charts and photos of similar poses alongside.

[Sickbrush]

hey mister Vlad,
welcome to the boards [at last!]. glad to see you around here.
I'm also glad you've joined the Night Drawers gang and you're doing quite a good job there too.

ok, so here we go:
First of all, i think you should try to vary your materials for starters. try drawing with anything you can think of, on anything you can think of. try different sizes, different pencils, different techniques, etc.

Your gesture drawings are starting to improve but i think for now you should stick to drawing from refference rather than imagination. Both exercises are helpful but on different levels. When starting off, you need to gather a bunch of imaginative resources. Some you get from staring at thousands of drawings and paintings [which i'm quite sure you do], others you get from literally drawing.

When i started doing this, i drew alot from Marko Djurdjevic, Wesley Burt and other guys who had a great pencil technique. I did tons of studies like that, without caring that i was copying or something since my intention wasn't to show them around but just studying. If you take a drawing by Marko for instance, you can stare at it for a couple of good minutes and figure out the decisions he took there. Drawing is also about decision making. Just try to work while comparing [up to a certain point] to the big guys. Of course, you shouldn't let yourself get beatdown by the fact that you can't do what they do. It all comes with time and hard work so don't worry.

Working with a 2mm lead on A5 means alot of things. One is that you can pump alot of details into a drawing, the other is that sometimes you can't see what you're doing. If you're going to do some in-detail studies in the future, try doing them on larger paper, while keeping an eye on all the details. Also, try to stay on the semi-blunt side of your lead. While the lead wears off, the contact surface with the paper increases in size and your lines become a bit too "fluffy" and they lack precision. Spin the pencil just a little bit from time to time.

Watch out for your lines and the difference between them. you could keep soft lines for construction and some more firm lines for the details. Plus, as you might know already, stronger lines create the foreground most of the time [ or the focus / focal area at least], whileast softer lines tend to feel like they're further in the back.

Ok, i'm just going to shut up now
Right after i tell you that Bridgman is a very good resource for learning anatomy, plus Kevin Chen and others. [but we can chat about that on ym].

Allright, bro, keep it up, you're doing a great job so far and i hope my ranting hasn't been stupid or anything
Cheers mate.

[MrHuffer]

Hey man thanks a bunch for replying and the feedback =D.

I have a ton of images in my library and I keep discovering amazing artists on these boards very very often. I did try some studies from some of them but nothing too serious...I'm gonna change that real soon. Im also trying and experimenting different materials and tehniques, not much enough tho.

I think my fear is that my "eye" is not good enough to analyze other drawings and accurately judge my own work. I remember that at one point (a long while ago ) I thought what I was drawing was pretty cool, but in fact it was utter rubbish. I could see some mistakes but they simply didn't bother me. Now as I look past relatively recent stuff as I spot problems I constantly try to fix them and bring the drawings to a decent level. I hope that will help my "eye", and I do feel it's improving, but maybe there are are huge blatant mistakes which I cannot see and which severely lower the drawing's quality and appeal.

Speaking of Nightdrawerz, here are the now weekly (I hope) life drawing sketches, and a page from my current sketchbook (A4 size on which I usually work with 0.35 B (for construction and rough lines) and 0.5 2B (for clean-up, final lines and hatching) mechanical pencils).

On the life drawing sketches, the last ones especially are pretty screwed up in construction, and the first ones lack line variety, and the shirt areas are a mess. *_*
On the sketchbook page the center figure is from photo reference, the one on left is based on it, from imagination, the lower left one is from this book on figure drawing anatomy by Joseph Sheppard, but it was very rushed, and the rest is mixed reference and imagination.

Also I need to mess around with my scanner settings and find a better way to adjust the scans in PS and preserve the ranges.

Any kind of critique (as rough as possible ) is much welcome!

[MrHuffer]

Update - quick sketches of hands from Bammes, photos and life and last a life drawing.

I'm trying to understand the shape of the hand and how light falls on it in very quick and easy sketches - with a watersoluble pen and a waterbrush..if I get the patience I will attempt to do a detailed study.

[Sickbrush]

pure awesomeness. those hand studies look fantastic! keep it up!

[a-disasterpiece]

@_@ so many studies there ^^ keep up the goodwork kaibigan(friend)

[izy17]

Thanks for the comment on my sketchbook! I think what I like the most in yours is the hand study. I never thought of studying the way that light falls on hands - I've only ever studied their shape. Interesting medium too! Keep up the good work!

[cesar11]

Great hand work you sure are on your way, i am jealous of your shading its very good.

[Talullah]

More nudes, more nudes! Though the hands are awesome sauce with a dash of awe Told you you draw well. :p

[MrHuffer]

Thanks guise. Here's more stuff, mostly paintovers because I can't control the tablet as I wish I could and just start from scratch >.>. Some strokes over the reference to get the proportions, then painted with the reference next to the working window.

And Tallulah, you're waay ahead of me - some of your drawings I saw - and which you won't scan - were just..awesome :]

[MrHuffer]

Life drawings update. FUUUUN!

[eyestrain]

Your studies look great.

[MrHuffer]

Thanks eyestrain. Heeere's this week's life drawings.

[MrHuffer]

moaaar

[MrHuffer]

purpleish

[Brandon Pilcher]

MrHuffer, I see a lot of improvement in between your 2010 and 2011 sketches. Congratulations!

[Trisscar]

Your latest life drawings are really good What about some more colour?

[MrHuffer]

Thanks Brandon! Worth it
@Trisscar thanks! I'm almost finishing up my second sketchbook and I think 'll do a massive update of life drawings soon. Trying in colour is too hard and I can't find the time to experiment now BUT I'll show what I do up here and with massive doses of purple and orange and crazy cool colors that make your eyes hurt. woot.

[Voodoo_Mama]

hey!
pretty cool sketches!
I love that last one, the cafe with people.
keep it up!

[MrHuffer]

thanks vodoo mama.
drow ranger:

[j-ace]

Love your work, the style is so intrigueing. The line frames overlapping has created something distinct and unusual. Keep it up, I know ill be watching.

[MrHuffer]

Thanks j-ace!
here' more color. wham!

[MrHuffer]

some more stuff. im trying to draw a portrait a day

[MrHuffer]

New updates - trying to get the hang of color

[GeniusFetus]

I like the color studies alot, some of the life drawings look stiff though; maybe a having the anatomy following along a curving line of action can loosen them up.

[pupuska]

Totally disagree with GeniusFetus - loving the life drawings, they make me want to attend a life drawing course again. I'm only seeing a gap of skill between your pencil life drawings and digital color studies, but I'm sure that with your skill you'll soon get the hang of doing them too. I'd like to see more characters from imagination though. Maybe some creatures, too?

[MrHuffer]

Thanks for the replies guys. I do agree that I have a lot of work ahead in color studies. I managed to read some words by Richard Schmid and I feel like I've made some progress, and at figure drawing, I'm trying to get poses that are more loose, flowing and dynamic, especially from imagination. Getting there'

Meanwhile, I picked up live studies from nature and posted some pages from my sketchbook.

[Jamie Romoser]

Nice first page for your sketchbook! I enjoy your figure studies and makes me want to get back into the grind with the figures.
keep having fun exploring and creating
-Jamie