NSFW - Kvenh's sketchbook of daily studies

[Kvenh]

Kvetch: Thanks! I agree it could've been better. I still think the second version is an upgrade though. The first has really weak values and not enough suggested details, in my opinion.

MeteorCat: Thanks man!

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Quick sketch for EoW. Not sure if I will have time for it but felt like doing somethig.

[NickyBeats]

awesome work lately man! the environment work is top notch! even the loose sketches describe all of the forms and lighting very well! love the colors and mood in the last sketch too! im off to go check out the topic now

[Kvenh]

NickyBeats: Thanks man!

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Scirrbling. I've had to play around with mattepainting and some camera projections lately. Not a fan (working wise, I enjoy the results) but I gotta do some.

[Kvenh]

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[Kvenh]

Haven't posted for like a week. I've still been drawing every day but only crap comes out, so yeah.

Heres some quick studies from today

[Overtoom]

Your landscapes keep amazing me, impressive and inspirational! Keep going!

[Kvenh]

Overtoom: Thank you! Glad you like them

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stuff

[Mr.Pryminista]

Nice new updates man. How long you spending on those portrait studies? They're essentially right but they're on the messy side (especially Kate B's nose haha). Anyways, good stuff overall.

[Kvenh]

Mr.Pryminista: Haha yeah. I was playing around with some brushes and shit trying out things, not much time spent there. Thanks!

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badfbadfbadf boringquickshit

[Mila]

Nice work! Particulary liking the black and white portrait of the woman

[Kvenh]

Mila: Thanks man!

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scribblin

[Andrew Sonea]

Wow, killing it dude! Loving your enviros! And that man in the hat in post 817 is great too!

Your figures/portraits are still a step behind your landscapes though. I think part of the probelm is you are not thinking "big picture" enough with them. You have tried pulling out the small brushes and are getting lost in trying to turn form and blend. And it's not working very well in my opinion. In almost all of these if you just took a bigger brush and painted in a more simple and planar manner, they would instantly be improved (and also solve some of the muddy values you are getting). You can then begin to render and smooth things out, but right now you are missing those major forms and planes. Also, if you want to blend a bit smoother try using a softer brush here and there, as currently it's a bit...choppy (for a lack of a better word).

The life drawing in the last post is fairly nice, and is better than some of your paintings in this regard. You are simplifying and separating lights/darks, but you can choose your shapes more clearly and control how soft or hard edged all the shapes are. I'm also not a fan of the uniformly dark (and scratchy) background, but that is a bit of personal preference. If you want to see how nice abstract backgrounds to figures work, I suggest picking up Henry Yan's book. Lastly, in this one the reflected lights are overdone--I'd just try to flatten the shadow values more.

[Kvenh]

Andrew Sonea: Thanks a lot for your crits! They help a lot. I often have trouble with creating full scenes even if I'd manage to do the objects separately.

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Haven't posted for a a while. Heres some random stuff. Theres alot more but the attachment manager is being a bitch so I'll just leave it at that.

[Satu]

Cool to see you updating again! Awesome stuff as always!

[Mila]

Great updates!

[Kvenh]

Satu: Thank you!

Mila: Thanks man!

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just some stuff. The attachments going crazy again.

[Kvenh]

Some weird alien head sketches and a bit more fleshed out version of one of them. Kind of a wippy still.

[Kvenh]

Rimlight overkilll

[Kvenh]

............

[Othrandir]

Woah! Love how that last piece is coming along! It was very fun seeing your thumbnail composition preparation. I'd suggest introducing a little bit more color variation in the last one. Other than that, awesome stuff man!

[Kvenh]

Othrandir: Thanks! It still is really weak though, the composition and everything are pretty bad. I just might have to start everything all over. Now I'm just pushing things around and trying to salvage it.

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[Andrew Sonea]

Glad to see you posting, I always like coming back to this sketchbook

I still see a disparity between your environments (which look great!) and your more organic things like portraits...that alien one is very nice though, and while yes, it is a bit generic especially with the rimlighting, I think it is a step forward for you and is a very convincing image. The textures and rimlight are handled very nicely, and the image almost even looks 3d (usually I think this is a bad thing, but in this case I am using it as a compliment).

For your portraits though...I still see this great hesitancy, timidness, whatever you want to call it. I think it is really just a mental block or something you are struggling with since you other work is very strong. You are just thinking too much with rounded forms and worrying about blending, but by doing this it turns to mush, gets soft, and loses interest and structure and forms. I did a quick little paintover to show I suggest you can approach these paintings. Basically, try to get as much structure as possible and paint as planar as you can. I put a lot of harder edges in there and focused on the planes to get forms to turn. Everything is laid down pretty opaque and in little interlocking patches of colour and value. I like the approach of painting everything a little bit too planar to start...it gets the main forms and structure in very clearly, then you can soften and blend a few planes together where you see fit. This way you have some nice hard edges there...then can lose what you don't need. I never much liked starting soft and adding in hard edges, I find it is a bit harder to control and keep an edge hierarchy. Plus with this approach you can choose any level of tightness/blendedness or any level of painterliness. You start at one extreme and creep away from it until you find the balance you like. Ah, one thing to add: I ended up changing the structure and likeness a little bit when I switched it to be more planar...if you do it right (maybe I would have been a bit better with reference) then the structure shouldn't really change that much at all, it will just read clearer.





Oh, and I like the tiger painting too! I like it when it has a bit more green than blue in it, like hte first thumbnail. And I think it would be good to paint the tiger with its front paw extended out instead of bent back, if it were reaching out in front it break the silhouette a little so it becomes more interesting and also emphasizes the fact it is coming towards us.

[Sushy]

That picture with the tiger is really cool

[Vulgar`]

Great sense of movement on that tiger pic.

[Kvenh]

Andrew Sonea: Thanks for the crits again! I see what you're saying with the planes. I think I probably just don't pay enough attention to brushstrokes and the plane directions.

Sushy: Thank you!

Vulgar`: Thanks man!

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I already dropped the tiger, was so shit again. I guess I didn't go enough preliminary work again, and I'm too impatient.
Heres some recent stuff. Figured I haven't got much character and creature concepts so decided to do some. They aren't really that polished, lately I've been working on several things at the same time and just swapping between them depending on my mood. Many of them not finished, maybe later.

Not too fond of the new attachment manager stuff going on again. Also would rather see the attachment images appear large instead of thumbnails.

so. yeah.

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[Satu]

Good stuff! Shame that you dropped the tiger, I really liked it too.
Awesome studies as always and I like the character concepts also. Especially the lizard-dude.

[Kvenh]

Satu: Thanks! I'm working on a revision of the tiger. I really want to do the piece but I'm failing to do it in the form I initially. I'm probably going to have to make some adjustments to make it easier.

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bloop. Could use a lot more work but I'll just move on.