|| Brand2.0 || SKetchboOK - Leave some wisdom as you pass through

[Brand2.0]

So, I love drawing and illustration. Turns out drawing and illustration hate me. It's a love/hate thing.

So with that I have been practicing and getting better. I have a tendency to pick up on and understand things very quickly so any and all advice is very much welcomed and appreciated.

I would like to get to a point were once I have the idea or concept down I can forgo line drawing and dive right into rendering. I am not at that point yet.

Currently I'm seeking advice on rendering in Photoshop, any art book suggestions on any topic relating to improving my artistic ability and practice regimens that I can start doing immediately.

Thanks you guys for being so awesome and I hope I won't disappoint you with my improvements!

[Yulai]

I love your little comments Keep up the good work but pay a little more attention to anatomy (it might just be me but the arms seem a bit thin for the figures in the left) and shading (or color choice, it took me a while to realize Maus's leg was up. I know it is just a sketch but remember that you are not just limited to darker/lighter shades of the base color when you are shading! Use colors you normally wouldn't think of using to make your pictures POP and to prevent your pictures form blending together!). Anyways, I can't wait to see more of you sketches!

[in2eternity]

Quite a good start, hope to see more )))

[Brand2.0]

Can anyone recommend some practices I can do to improve building "form" using gray scale brushes?

Yulai:
Thanks for the advice! Yeah, my anatomy could certainly use work. I find it hard to come up with interesting posses sometimes because I think I worry to much about getting the anatomy right. I tried to color Maus by coloring him first using only gray, because I'm really interested in getting good at that, and then overlaying color. It didn't work out as you can see haha I hate not knowing what I'm doing wrong!

in2eternity:
Haha well I don't know about great but it is a start haha I'm going to try and post something every day so keep checking back and just watch and see how good I'm going to get!

Here's today's work. Not much because I've been busy getting ready for Easter.

[Yulai]

Yay, more sketches! I am really starting to fall in love with your style! About your question, you might want to try practicing how to draw the reflective, semi-reflective and non reflective things around you! For example, try drawing your computer, paying attention to how to environment around you is reflected on the screen, and mimic this in gray scale. You could also try this with the metal, plastic or glass objects around your house, paying attention to shadows/reflections. You might want to work with non-reflective objects, like cloth or flesh, a little more since you seem to have a pretty good grasp of semi-reflective objects from looking at your sketches. Anyways, I hope this helped and Happy Easter (or day before Easter in this case)!

[Brand2.0]

Well thanks! Though I don't think it is so much of a "style" as it is just me being really bad at drawing haha I'll definitely work on painting "volume" (I guess that's what it is called?) after Easter and all the family leaves. That way I can really focus on what I am doing. Are their any books you or anyone can think of that would help me with that?

Well I haven't had much time but here are the past two days of sketching that I managed to get done. It's not much but it's something for now. Some of them are not so great but the rest of them are awful, nowhere near where I could be. Oh well soon enough I guess!!

[Brand2.0]

So I hope everyone had a fantastic Easter! I just wanted to post a quick sketch I did today as I probably won't get much time for anything else for the rest of the evening.

I HATE that I cannot reproduce what is in my head so this is where I am currently. I wish I could find a local teacher/mentor that could help me improve. Are there any sites that provide like, online mentoring?

[Brand2.0]

Hey just wanted to check in! I haven't stopped drawing I've just been out of town for a while! As soon as I get back and get to my scanner I will have a ton of sketching to post.

I'm also working out some concepts for a possible project.

[LordLouis]

Hey Brand,

That is good to hear- your sketches are awesome!
Sure some of them might have some flaws, but most of your work is so dynamic and authentic, I really love your simple lines. Stick to the "love" bit of your relationship! :p

[Brand2.0]

I didn't give up everyone! I've been drawing just about every day! I haven't been able to Update in a while because i spend all of my time working on a huuuuge project that I am working on with a good friend of mine. I had some free time today to do some sketching so I figured I would post it. Give everyone a little insight into my drawing habits and the way my mind works (or maybe doesn't work! haha)

All comments and advice is greatly needed and appreciated!

[Brand2.0]

Just an update threw some super fast color on. I like the piece it's plain, quick and very,very rough but that's what sketchbooks are for!

[Brand2.0]

Another quick sketch I did tonight. Quick sketch and some early flats there is a ton that I need to change before I actually render it but I wanted color on it before I put it in my sketchbook.

He is Elko, one of the two members of the Blue Button Brigade. He is brave, curious and too clever for his own good! He sets off on an adventure with Bogun (the second and only other member of the Blue Button Brigade) to find trinkets from the Overworld but what he discovers sets in motion a series of events that will change Maplewood forever.

Will the rats remove King Archibald from the throne? Will Aceedomay sell out Elko and Bogun to the raptors? Will the burrowers ally with the mouse guild or wait things out and claim the left over land? Can anything stop the Dread Redfur? Can two mice change the course of history and pull the entire kingdom of mice from the edge of oblivion???

Only time can tell. Maplewood: Book One - "The hands of time".

[fenixx]

Hey. Thanks for dropping by in my SB.

You have really got a great start here. All you need to do is stick to you statement about drawing constantly. Keep it up

And about rendering... I think this might help you
http://www.ctrlpaint.com/home/2011/6...-blending.html
http://www.ctrlpaint.com/home/2011/6...ing-value.html
http://www.ctrlpaint.com/home/2011/6...d-objects.html

Check out other videos as well. Very useful.

Cheers.

[Brand2.0]

fenixx: Holy crap those are really decent tutorials! I ended up browsing through all of them watching quite a few. I've been drawing non stop and I already see a million times improvement from even just a week ago.

Here is my latest sketch. Yes I know it resembles a "popular" t-shirt design. The reason I am drawing this is a good friend of mine is as much of a nerd as I am. He's tall and lanky and he always used to wear this shirt with a "Bullhead Dolphin" so I set out to draw something equally as cheesy.

Him as a barbarian fishing for a bullhead dolphin with a pole arm type weapon with a full moon and three wolves in the background and waves splashing behind him. I haven't added the waves or the fishing line yet (which really balances out the composition).

I just wish I could render it how I see it in my head. But anyway without further adue here's my latest sketch. Took about 30-40 minutes to get everything where I wanted it to be.

[mutestar]

A lot of your work has some really nice qualities to it. What I would recommend is that you try doing some more story telling with it. In the latest spear-fisher one, why are the wolves there? Are the wolves part of his culture or is his culture based on fishing? His head also seems to lurch back a bit. Next time try taking a photo of yourself in that position so that you can see what your head and neck are doing (it might also help make it a little less stiff).

Overall I really like your character designs and I think they would be fun to play with. Try making a scene of some sort with them, but focus on telling a story. Who's good and who's bad? Who's retreating, where are they, what are they thinking? It doesn't have to be hugely complex, just enough so that we can get an idea of who they are, brave, cowardly, detached, shy, etc.

[Brand2.0]

A lot of your work has some really nice qualities to it. What I would recommend is that you try doing some more story telling with it. In the latest spear-fisher one, why are the wolves there? Are the wolves part of his culture or is his culture based on fishing? His head also seems to lurch back a bit. Next time try taking a photo of yourself in that position so that you can see what your head and neck are doing (it might also help make it a little less stiff).

Overall I really like your character designs and I think they would be fun to play with. Try making a scene of some sort with them, but focus on telling a story. Who's good and who's bad? Who's retreating, where are they, what are they thinking? It doesn't have to be hugely complex, just enough so that we can get an idea of who they are, brave, cowardly, detached, shy, etc.

Thanks for the compliment and the great advice! I do intend to start sketching more story driven pieces. I've been trying to practice a lot of anatomy because I find that I am pretty weak in that area (among many others) and I find when I focus too much on trying to get the anatomy right I lose focus on trying to make the character dynamic or creating an interesting scene. I've started doing anatomy studies (which I probably won't post because they are boring) and once I get more familiar I plan on doing a bunch of different pose sketches.

I'm hoping this will free me up from worrying so much about anatomy and let me focus on what you were saying about composing a scene and displaying more character in my sketches.

Haha the wolves, fish and barbarian design are an inside joke. I drew it for my good friend (who shares the barbarians face) because he always used to wear this ugly fish shirt. It was his favorite shirt. I always teased him about how it was just as cheesy as the "Three wolf moon" t-shirt (Google it and you'll see what I mean!) and he is a tall and skinny guy who is just as big a geek as I am so I decided drawing him as a manly barbarian would be hilarious.

I don't currently have a working camera (stupid sand!) so would you or anyone reading this know where there is a repository of poses that I could draw from?

I also have a ton of questions about lighting and color pallets. I have a cursory knowledge of color theory but are there any "best practices" or general rules of thumb I can use to improve my color selection? Also what is the best way to go about developing my understanding of light sources? What can I practice to improve in those areas?

[Brand2.0]

Random stuff. Didn't have much time to draw today

[syrella]

I really love the way you draw mice... specifically the first one! Too cute! Keep up the good work!

[Big Orange]

You've got a fixation with rodents, but you're coming along fine and I dig your fun doodling.

I've expanded my sketchbook today.